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MY TWO KINGS 

















































































































































































































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Charles II 


tittiitn.i 



MY TWO KINGS 


A Novel of the Stuart Restoration 


•/ 


BY 


MRS. EVAN NEPEAN 

ii 


/ 


Ah, les beaux jours, j’etais si miserable ! ” 





NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
681 Fifth Avenue 

* 



CAROLUS SECUNDUS REX 

Saunter with me in this shady alley! 

Come from the Past where the dead are stay’d, 
I will meet you with quip and sally. 
Understanding and unafraid. 

Sun, and a breeze, and a flick’ring shade — 

Scent of roses, and aspens’ stir — 

Here, with a hand on my shoulder laid, 

Walk with your cousin. Sir! 

What did you get out of life, I wonder? 

All that it offered you took, I think. 

The fires die out in grey ashes under. 

And bitter the lees of that wine to drink . . . 

If 7 have guarded my flame undimming, 

But ne’er have been warmed by its cheery blaze, 
If still I thirst with my wine cup brimming. 
Smile at your cousin’s ways! 

Did the bill come in on the heels of buying? 

The world says naught of the price you paid, 
Was all you had worth the scorn undying 
That History heaps on the bargain made? 

So, for sins confest as sins unshriven, 

Done in the dark or against the day. 

For love that is bought, as love that is given, 

— We pay for them. Sir, we pay! 

Oh, you that they swore loved naught but pleasure, 
(Did they pause to say so, between their cheers?) 
Oh, you that squandered your people’s treasure, 
You kept their love and you had their tears, 
You held your throne all those troubled years, 

Ah, Sir, ’tis something to hold a throne! 
Through the days of waiting, the nights of fears, 
Come to your own, your own. 

vii 


Vlll 


Carolus Secundus Rex 


You had your day in the Stuart fashion, 

I, too, Your Majesty, had my day; 

I, Stuart with you, staged wit and passion, 

I, Stuart with you, sat out the play. 

But now that your mask aside I lay. 

Revealing the man that I used to know, 

You smile and you shrug with a “Have your way! 
’Tis all very long ago.” 


Dark curls on a velvet coat, a twinkle 
Of eyes as dark in a shadow set, 

A ribbon’s flutter — a jewelled tinkle — 

A gleam of gems in the gold-work’s fret — 
White lawn o’er a long brown hand, that ever 
Lies light on my arm — and so, for me, 
There’s a-many to walk and talk, but never 
The peer of Your Majesty! 


1917. 


In the dusk of this garden alley, 

Here, where the trembling aspens sigh, 

When the moon comes up from the valley. 

And the red dies out of the sky, — 

Come from the Past as the day goes by! 

Come, where the falling petals stir. 

Come, we are kinsfolk, you and I, 

Talk with your cousin. Sir. 

Maud Nepean. 



/ 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Carolus Secundus Rex vii 

CHAPTER I 

Prologue: In which Maud Nepean Introduces 

Charlotte Stuart 3 

CHAPTER II 

My First Interview with King Charles 23 

CHAPTER III 

Whitehall 45 

CHAPTER IV 

Windsor 63 

CHAPTER V 

Life at Court 77 

ix 


X 


Contents 


CHAPTER VI 

PAGE 

Men and Women 93 

CHAPTER VII 

Under the Royal Roof 115 

CHAPTER VIII 

The Gentle Art of Making Enemies 139 

CHAPTER IX 

The King’s Bondswoman 157 

CHAPTER X 

The Chaste Nymph 177 

CHAPTER XI 

In Lighter Vein 201 

CHAPTER XII 

“Men call it Love!” 219 


Contents 


xi 


CHAPTER XIII 

PAGE 

The King my Friend 233 

CHAPTER XIV 

William the Conqueror 249 

CHAPTER XV 

The Love of Lady Wentworth 261 

CHAPTER XVI 

Bothwell Brig 277 

CHAPTER XVII 

“St. Stephen’s by St. AlbaNs” 287 

CHAPTER XVIII 

We take our Turns on the Rack 307 

CHAPTER XIX 

The Hate of the Duchess of Monmouth 327 

CHAPTER XX 

Eden 341 


Contents 


xii 

CHAPTER XXI 

PAGE 

My Last Interview with King Charles 353 

CHAPTER XXII 

God Save the King ! 367 

CHAPTER XXIII 

My Last Interview with King Monmouth 387 

CHAPTER XXIV 

The Tower of London 405 

CHAPTER XXV 

Knowledge 431 

CHAPTER XXVI 

From St. Stephen’s to St. Albans 443 

CHAPTER XXVII 

From Toddington to the End 457 


To the Stuarts 


473 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Charles II Frontispiece 

From the miniature by Samuel Cooper at Goodwood 
House. By permission of the Duke of Richmond 
and Gordon. Specially photographed by Mr. 
Donald Macbeth. 


FACING FAGE 


Charlotte Stuart 1 44 

From a picture after Sir Peter Lely. Specially 
photographed by Mr. Donald Macbeth. 

James, Duke of Monmouth 272 


From the portrait by Sir Peter Lely at Madresfleld 
Court. By permission of Earl Beauchamp. 
Specially photographed by Mr. Donald Macbeth. 

Henrietta, Baroness Wentworth 368 

From the engraving by Williams, from Sir Godfrey 
Kneller, in the British Museum. Specially photo- 
graphed by Mr. Donald Macbeth. 


xiii 

















I 






* 









* 







PROLOGUE: IN WHICH MAUD NEPEAN IN- 
TRODUCES CHARLOTTE STUART 




















CHAPTER I 


PROLOGUE : IN WHICH MAUD NEPEAN INTRODUCES 

CHARLOTTE STUART 

These seventeenth-century Memoirs were written dur- 
ing the Great War, at a time when imagination was 
stimulated abnormally and circumstances led to the 
necessity for a safety-valve, also, as I believe, when 
the memory of my life at Charles IPs Court began 
to come back to me. 

For a long time I had been conscious that I, or a 
woman resembling me, was present at Whitehall 
some time after the Restoration. Directly I began 
to put down stray scenes of my “recollections” on 
paper, I became all the more clearly aware that I 
(or she, my alter ego, Charlotte Stuart) was actually 
a witness of many things that occurred; but more and 
more certainly was I convinced that I (or she) was 
not in London on some occasions, notably the death 
of the King and the execution of his son the Duke 
of Monmouth. I can visualise these scenes, but I 
know that I reconstruct them entirely from what I 
have read; with others the sensation is a different one 
— apart from all other reasons I can simply say, M Z 
was there!” 

I do not attribute it to race-memory, heredity 
will not serve in this case, though I have legitimate 
Royal Stuart blood as well as my descent from King 
Charles II and King James II. As will be seen in 
these pages, apart from the very strong feeling I 
possess that these people were my blood relations — 

8 


My Two Kings 


and therefore this work differs in character from the 
usual Stuart book (“old stories tied together with 
string,” as a witty friend puts it!) — I borrow no help 
from a family tree. Plus Royaliste que le Roi, an 
abiding loyalty was the motive force behind all Madame 
Stuart’s actions remembered (or invented) ; so vivid 
is the sensation that I may be pardoned for likening 
it to the wearing thin of a veil between those times 
and these. 

Also, loving both the King and his worshipped son 
Monmouth as Charlotte Stuart did, I have made it 
clear that her eyes were never entirely blind to their 
faults ; but X have the impression that, for once, there 
was an onlooker in the palace itself, though perhaps 
over-feminine in her estimates, who saw and under- 
stood much that mystified historians, and can now 
write frankly of what came under her immediate 
notice. 

For it should be remembered that, among the con- 
temporary memoirs most important in History’s 
eyes, Samuel Pepys wrote from the outside of the 
Court circle socially; John Evelyn (whose diary has 
only been given to the public in a sadly restricted 
form) from the point of view of an uncourtier-like 
and unsociable philosopher ; Thomas Bruce Lord Ailes- 
bury, trusting entirely to memory and writing fifty 
years after; and Anthony Hamilton, for the Comte 
de Gramont, from a prejudiced point of view, and 
one wholly unreliable as to dates ! while Mme. d’Aul- 
noy’s description of her visit to London in 1675 is 
not absolutely authentic, though, if regarded as such, 
it is of great value, but it covers very little ground 
and is simply Court gossip. Bishop Burnet was 
never to be trusted where a Stuart was concerned! 
■ — even that valuable document known as the Buccleuch 
MS. account of Monmouth’s last days is full of 
proved errors, if trivial ones. All the rest are rid- 


Nepean Introduces Stuart 


5 


died with mistakes, written though they were at first 
hand, therefore Madame Stuart’s many slips must be 
forgiven ! 

I wish particularly to emphasise this, and the fact 
that the dialogue has been tuned to a more modern hey, 
to avoid the irritation caused the general reader by 
what I may describe as “the Pepys manner,” and, as 
is only natural, the very free speech and behaviour 
of the times have been somewhat toned down. Much 
of what I write here owes nothing to History; for 
instance, nearly all contemporary works on Monmouth 
were either suppressed after his disgrace, purposely 
falsified, or compiled by those in ignorance of facts, 
or with an eye on possible favours to come at the hands 
of James II or William III. 

The Duchess of Monmouth’s letters of that date 
were burnt at The Wemyss in 1700, though we have 
a large quantity of those written later, of far less 
public interest, alas ! The preserved correspondence 
of King Charles, to my present knowledge, contains 
not one single love-letter (I cannot call a hasty note 
to the Duchess of Portsmouth by that name) nor 
is there extant one solitary specimen of Monmouth’s 
amatory correspondence in any direction ; though 
the Record Office possesses a number of his letters 
when Captain-General, written in connection with 
the army we now know he loved so well and did his 
best to serve faithfully, a fact History never even 
mentions ! 

Lady Wentworth, Monmouth’s true love, left not a 
word known to be written by her; only one spoken 
sentence is recorded; and no portrait exists of which 
the identity is unquestioned; indeed, it seems almost 
impossible that any of the four — two paintings and 
two prints — can really represent her (though I publish 
the best), as the dates are so hopelessly “out.” 

I have gone most carefully into this matter, and 


6 


My Two Kings 


have consulted various experts, as also where Mon- 
mouth’s portraits, authentic and dubious, are con- 
cerned. 


To my supreme regret, Madame Stuart certainly 
did not go to Court before 1670. Her memories 
might then have included the greatest feminine enchant- 
tress among the Royal Stuarts, ‘Madame,’ Henriette 
d’Angleterre, “so-called because she was so much 
more of France,” who came to England in that year, 
and died a few weeks after her return. Had I been 
inventing a Stuart autobiography I should have 
undoubtedly made myself, or my prototype, younger, 
gayer, a beauty of Whitehall if not in the lively 
Gramont and Pepys sixties, yet certainly before 
Charles had reigned a decade. I should most surely 
not have placed my own debut in the middle seven- 
ties, at a time when History, contemporary memoirs, 
diaries, letters, and MSS. help very little, and one 
at which neither Charles nor Monmouth is so acces- 
sible in every-day life to the Stuart student as they 
were earlier, and later. I make a point of this, to 
show that 1674 was by no means the year I should 
have selected to begin my life at Court, had this been 
a fictional work ! 

I can give no logical reason for my recollections, 
and I am not psychic — never was a more impossible 
medium than I. But I believe that anything and 
everything can happen (and sometimes does), and that 
gives me a wide margin in life on which some power 
or powers jot down notes by no means written in the 
matter-of-fact Diary of Everyday. 

Behind me, perchance, not all the doors were shut! 


Let us omit a possible skill in mental vision, a 


Nepean Introduces Stuart 


7 


certain trick of making friends with those of our dead 
and gone whose blood runs warmest in our veins to-day 
' so little dead, and gone such a short distance, 
sometimes! — the practised glibness of the journalist, 
the enthusiasm of the hero-worshipper, the determina- 
tion to travel in a fair past century as a relief from 
the miseries of the present 1 — none of these reasons 
(or excuses), however reasonable, suffices. This fol- 
lowing book may prove something quite different from 
what I believe it will be ; but, again, it may read uncon- 
vincingly ; if so, it will be my fault for describing 
badly what I have seen. 

And I am aware that I shall be told I have allowed 
myself too much license. 

I have no authority, for example, for presenting 
Frances Stuart Duchess of Richmond, ten years or 
so after her lively youth in Pepys’s and Gramont’s 
pages, as I have done here; I can only say that this 
is la belle Stuart as a humbler, plainer, older Stuart 
cousin knew, admired, and loved her. She ran out 
of the end of my pen, as did Madame Stuart’s account 
of her own self, something of a surprise to the holder 
of that pen ! Charles II and Monmouth are much 
as I expected them to be; on the other hand, Lady 
Wentworth is not; and it never occurred to me that 
any sort of an understanding with Lord Rochester 
or the vilified Keeper of the King’s Closet would have 
been possible to a decent woman. 

But, as I began to write, so came memory back. 

In this life I am far more lenient towards James II, 
a cruelly misunderstood man, placed in a position so 
difficult that nobody has made half the allowances for 
him that mere justice demands. On the other hand, 

1 1 write this book for that reason. I can only hope that it 
may help those who read it, as the writing of it helped me at a 
time of great distress and anxiety in 1916. If it does, I shall 
be amply repaid. 


8 


My Two Kings 


he was his own enemy to an even greater degree than 
were his brother Charles and his nephew James. The 
former I believe (and certainly seem to have believed) 
to have been a far more able King and diplomatist 
than History allows : shrewder, harder-working, hidden 
from his people behind his purposely assumed mask, 
and even from his nearest and dearest — why, he alone 
knew. The Madame Stuart of that day can state 
this fact, though she cannot altogether explain it, but 
she knows that her King thought his subjects fools, 
while never falling into the common error of behaving 
as if they were! — thus he paid them the subtle com- 
pliment of effectually concealing his methods from 
them. 

She can and does emphasise her belief (which is 
mine) that his love for women was of his life a thing 
apart, that his mistresses were of far less importance 
than they appeared then and appear now, that his 
absorption in their society and extravagance for their 
sake were part of the mask he assumed. In the popular 
fancy, Charles II is, in fine, a picturesque figure whose 
illicit loves add to his picturesqueness! The average 
reader of History, at the first mention of this King, 
imagines him as the lounging owner of a seraglio of 
extremely pretty, rather witty, hopelessly bad “fair 
ladies.” That is the estimate of himself which, I think, 
the grandson of Henri IV wilfully handed down, and 
Clio, who seldom sees below the surface, takes him at 
his surface value. 

I do not want to beatify Charles II. Heaven knows 
never was a man less of a saint! 

But Fortune’s hand was heavy on that fated family, 
and never did she help them out of the pitfalls that 
lay in wait for every Stuart. Had it been his luck 
to build his house upon a rock, to love whole-heartedly 
one human being who never failed him, he would have 
left a different record. He loved the wrong people , 


Nepean Introduces Stuart 


he built upon sand. Lucy Walter, his wife for all 
I knew and all I know, Monmouth their son, Frances 
Stuart who would have none of him, Henriette his 
sister whom he mistakenly married into France and 
whom France took from him — these people he honestly 
loved, and each in turn failed him. 

He came to his throne, not as Royal youth trium- 
phant — as he would have done had he won Worcester 
fight — but after that fatal decade of exile, as the man 
of thirty, coarsened in fibre, hardened, disillusioned, 
deteriorated, true member of “the race that never 
wore well.” 

So he came to his own again, and grasped life 
with both hands and squeezed it dry ; so he took 
his pleasure with such as Barbara Palmer; so he 
called upon Nell Gwyn, gay inconsequent Lady of 
Laughter, to be his plaything and distracting enfant 
terrible; so he made the Frenchwoman queen of the 
left hand. 

His wife was outside the pale of his existence by 
reason of the gulf between their temperaments; it was 
neither his fault nor hers, cruelly as she suffered, 
soundly as he has been rated. 

For the Duchess of Cleveland he had the passion of 
a young man rejoicing in his strength, and later, the 
patience of a good-natured male creature abhorrent of 
scenes ! — also, he was proud of her beautiful children, 
and there is no doubt that Charlotte Lady Litchfield 
was a daughter worth having, while he saw in Grafton 
considerable fighting promise. I wonder what he 
would have said of Grafton’s later record? I myself 
understand and excuse it, though History does not. 
He was Charles’s son by Barbara ! — I need say nothing 
further. 

Of his relations with those women linked to him 
by blood or family ties I never had, and never shall 
have, anything but good to say. 


10 


My Two Kings 


His extreme patience (and humour) when deal- 
ing with that poor spoilt child his mother, Queen 
Henrietta Maria, from whom I saw Monmouth derive 
many traits unnoticed by History ! his management 
of his wayward, arrogant sister Mary of Orange, 
who vowed that her love for her only child, William 
III, was as nothing beside her love for her brother ; 
his justice in the matter of the first Duchess of York’s 
marriage; the unfailing affection between him and the 
second Duchess, who frankly confessed that at first 
she loved him and detested her husband, and who, 
though she came to worship James II, never varied 
in her affection for Charles, and took to her bed, ill 
with grief, when he died; his enduring kindness to 
his daughter-in-law Anna Monmouth, with whom he 
always sided; and his tenderness for and interest in 
his natural daughters, have never received proper 
acknowledgment. 

His attitude towards his brother James was from 
start to finish a miracle of cleverness. 

It was too clever for J ames ! — though I must do 
him the justice to say that, jealous as he always was 
of the King, tried beyond endurance as he was by 
Monmouth, he was obedient and loyal, but Heaven 
save us from having a brother and son like those two, 
as His Majesty had, to play off one against the other! 
Play them off he did, and kept a balance between 
them little short of marvellous till near the finish, but 
like Mary II his niece, who had to choose between 
husband and father, Charles had to decide between 
the brother he never cared for and the son he adored, 
and, I think, played a fairer part than she did, since 
after all James’s star remained in the ascendant till 
Charles’s death, and Monmouth had been in exile 
almost entirely abroad since the exposure of the Rye- 
house Plot. 

King Charles kept the English crown secure for 


Nepean Introduces Stuart 


11 


twenty-five years and King James threw it away in 
four, exactly as his brother had prophesied. Mon- 
mouth could not take it from him, and had he been 
able to do so, would not have held it any longer — I 
know Monmouth, and I know that. 

As for my own personal relations with the King 
I can say this much : 

There were things I confided to him that I never 
told any one else, there were jokes and secrets that 
we shared, and foolish times of overstrain or mis- 
understanding which his presence alone relieved, and 
the knowledge that he always understood meant every- 
thing to me. I have laughed with him till I could 
laugh no more! Once I fell on my knees by his chair 
in a time of sore trouble connected with Monmouth 
(his trouble too), and gave way altogether, my cheek 
on the hand laid along the arm of his chair, his other 
patiently patting my shaking shoulder. Do not think 
I often wept to Charles. It wearies a man — I know, 
who better? But there were days when he wearied 
more of laughter than of tears, the empty wicked 
laughter heard so often at his Court, and above all 
things, he wished me (without ever saying so) to be 
my natural self with him. For himself he could be 
what he pleased, he knew. 

Yet Charles showed his best side to me, therefore it 
is of his best side that I write. 

But I have encountered him in one of the blazing 
Stuart rages into which he fell not more than half a 
dozen times in the whole course of his life; I have 
known him desperately ill, unsuspected by the world 
in general; I have seen him in the deepest despon- 
dency, when I felt how the Pit seemed like to close 
over his head, the earth rocked under his feet, and 
there was no Heaven; I have been in his company 
when he was drunk and survived it ! — all the men 
got drunk in those days, and many of the women, 


12 


My Two Kings 


but Charles very seldom and the Duke of York prac- 
tically never; — I have heard him swear till the room 
went round with me, yet I kept a calm face; I have 
listened to jests too broad, but never views too nar- 
row; bitter judgments passed, but never unjust sen- 
tences; I have seen him hurt to the quick and laugh 
cynically above the stab; I have longed with all my 
heart to sympathise, and have had to sit still, hold 
my tongue, and keep my eyes in my lap. I knew 
him for a marvellous actor and an expert liar — he 
was a diplomatist! I myself have thought him to 
be imposed upon more than once, and a fool under 
Monmouth’s beguiling, but never in all my dealings 
with “the best-bred man alive” did I find him anything 
but a gentleman. 

Most of his courtiers had all his faults, not half 
his good heart, not a tithe of his shrewdness (he 
was shrewd and lightning-quick rather than clever), 
and they were frequently cads into the bargain. 
Therefore I can say when the world sneers at his 
use, for his own purposes, of the men and women 
about him, “Think, do you realise what those pur- 
poses were?” In all my summing up of Charles II’s 
career I look behind his acts and his apparent acts — 
screens behind screens — for his reasons, generally 
invisible even to me. Yet not only did my cousin 
understand all that I gave him, but all that I wished 
to give him; he took my deeds, so few and paltry, 
and my will, so unboundedly great and fine. He took 
my loyalty, aye, my sentimental loyalty, laughing me 
out of countenance at the sentiment, but valuing the 
loyalty as pure gold. I could listen, and I did, I 
could hold my tongue and my temper, I could give 
private service, some humour, some tact, I was — little 
as I expected him to think so — of his sort. I proved 
myself a Stuart ! 

Call us a shifty race if you will ; somebody has said 


Nepean Introduces Stuart 


13 


the Royal branch of my family were a race of artists 
ruling a nation of shopkeepers. That is half the 
truth. But if you carry away the idea that the Royal 
Stuarts were artists with temperaments to match, 
knowing nothing of business, of the bringing of their 
goods to market, nor of the price to be paid — or, it 
may be, to pay — you will form a wrong estimate 
altogether. It is urged that the Stuarts nearly always 
failed. Yes, I know of only one really successful 
Stuart, King Charles II! and when you read History 
you will wonder whether Clio is blink or mad, or whether 
I was. 

Why then, wonder. So long as The Abbey stands, 
there will rest under the flagstone in Henry VII’s 
Chapel the bones of one who, wherever he is now, can 
afford to smile in the intervals of that better occupa- 
tion which, on his dreadful deathbed, he cheerfully 
hoped to be at presently. 


So I say again, I understood him. 

I say it over and over without apology. For with- 
out that gift I had never lived at Whitehall, and this 
book had not been written, nor had my King, my 
most dear cousin, been my comrade too. As it was, 
so it is. Stuarts change constantly, but in the end 
it will be found that no one changes fundamentally 
less than a Stuart. Charles II never changed to me, 
and he has not changed now. It is not blind love 
on my part; it is not the old sentimental loyalty at 
which he smiled; it is not the clannishness of the de- 
scendant of the Stewards of Scotland. 

This is the story of a woman whose King was her 
friend. 


The life at Whitehall as it met the eye of the 


14 


My Two Kings 


habitual courtier was in mine but the shell that con- 
tained and concealed the reality. 

It affected me very little; made, in fact, hardly 
any impression upon me. I am told that I lived in 
the centre of a cesspool of vice for over ten years ; 
I can only say that I came out of it as clean as I 
went in. I am not speaking of the question of feminine 
virtue — I was, and remained, one of the “good” women 
— but I wish to make it clear that my associations 
with scheming courtiers and frank courtesans left no 
mark whatever on my, perhaps, elastic character. To 
be served by the Keeper of the King’s Cabinet, as I 
was, to kiss Nelly, to be hand in glove with rackety 
Monmouth (puzzling to some, this last, and not at 
all puzzling to others !) to be in the King’s confidence 
and allotted lodgings not far from the Royal apart- 
ments, was enough to blacken any woman’s reputa- 
tion. Either I had none to lose, or the world was 
clever enough for once to see that gallantry was not 
my affair. I could be of more use to Charles and Mon- 
mouth as a quiet middle-aged woman of decent repute, 
and as such I believe I was generally considered, 
though I played my own little part in the life of 
the Court. I never went out of my way to be friends 
with the sinners, in whom I generally found much 
good, but I could put Rochester in his place for a 
liberty as easily as I could share Nelly’s coach and 
company, and both thought the better of me! I am 
fully aware that Charles and I cannot be pardoned 
for the advice we gave Lady Wentworth, yet he died 
unrepentant of that crime, and so did Charlotte Stuart. 
Other times, other morals. 

The world has disturbed itself terribly about 
Charles’s lack of religion — and I can tell the world 
it knew as little about his beliefs as it did about his 
son’s. 

The King was a Roman Catholic at heart for many 


Nepean Introduces Stuart 15 

years before he died, Monmouth was what we should 
now call distinctly Low Church, my faith was what 
it is at the present day, and need concern no one 
more than the differences between our separate forms 
of religion mutually concerned us three then. I was 
very sorry for Charles that he could not be satisfied 
with the Church of England, Monmouth’s Protestant- 
ism was openly jeered at as an empty form (all the 
world who cares to know can be better informed 
now), and it was supposed to be merely the trump 
card he played against his uncle James of York. A 
great many truly good people were very unhappy 
about the King and his son, and the few interested 
in me either blamed me or disbelieved my sincerity. 
I could not possibly be such friends, they said, with 
the father on one side and the son on the other 
(myself disagreeing on many points with both) with 
any root of genuine faith. Did we not argue, and 
quarrel, and were we not always persuading each 
other to different views? I can answer for it that 
never did Charles or Monmouth attack me about my 
creed, nor I them. His Grace of York was minded 
to have me for a convert, and I was quite ready to 
hear all he had to say, and thanked him, and said 
I would think it over, and I did so, and met him, smiling 
and debonair, when next our paths crossed, shaking 
my head and saying I saw no reason to alter my 
views, much as I appreciated his Highness’s arguments. 
That I knew them all before was not for me to tell 
him, surely? 

His poor Highness ! I think of him now and shake 
my head again — this time unsmiling. I never could 
make him like me: Monmouth’s friendliness for me 
from the very first sowed a seed of suspicion in his 
uncle’s mind that nothing ever uprooted. James II 
was my greatest failure — I may confess it! There 
was so much in him I admired, so much soundly 


16 


My Two Kings 


valuable, he had qualities I would have given my 
right hand to see possessed by Charles and Monmouth, 
but he inherited his mother’s arrogance and his 
father’s obstinacy (and, may I say now, the stupidity 
of both?) ; he had a long and danger-fraught waiting 
for his crown; he was a man of hot blood for all his 
cold blue eyes, and by the time he came to his throne 
he was under the thumb of his priests, who held him 
in thrall by reason of his sins of the flesh. He was 
far less to be excused as an immoral man, in my 
eyes, than the King his brother, for he had a young, 
lovely, and (finally) devoted wife, who, though her 
first children died, ultimately bore him a son and 
daughter who lived — alas for them. She began by 
liking me, Mary of Modena his little Duchess, tall, 
thin, long-limbed, long-faced, yet beautiful Italian 
child, “snow, blood, and ebony,” “O Dea certe!” — 
a martyr Queen if ever there was one, doomed to suffer 
(to my mind) worse than Queen Henrietta Maria or 
Queen Catherine. Oh, these Queens, these Queens! — 
God pity them, as I know He must. It is cruel work 
being a King, but it was tragedy incarnate to be a 
Stuart Queen. 

Charles, James, and Monmouth were all alike, their 
world was full of women — and “they were only 
women.” They all came to see the error of their 
ways and all too late; I think of the warning James II 
wrote his little son against the temptations of the 
love of “fair ladies,” and I sigh. He died a saint, 
and that means, whatsoever purgatory may be ahead 
of us in another world, we go through a terrible one 
in this. If James of York and likewise James of 
Monmouth performed no penance before they died, 
then all my beliefs are false. They suffered tortures, 
each in his own way, each at his own time. As for 
Charles, I am less sure. I was not in England for 
many months before his death, nor when he died. 


Nepean Introduces Stuart 


17 


History, so often at fault, insists on calling him The 
Merry Monarch. It may be therefore that he paid 
here as heavy a price for his pleasures as they did for 
theirs ! 

Of the men at Whitehall hardly one was worth the 
friendship the King bestowed on him, they all thought 
themselves cleverer than he, and he — he did not laugh 
at them even in his sleeve, he preserved a serious face, 
put on his mask as the Royal libertine, yawned, for 
all the world to see, over business, gave the town its 
fill of gossip over his women and the money they got 
out of him — and why? 

I can tell you. 

Charles II had a kink in him. I know that, never 
was a Stuart who had no kink! — but it was part of 
the game he played to appear godless, worthless, a 
forgetful friend, an impossible husband. It all wen! 
to the making of his mask. No man knew Ailesbury’s 
“most solitary sovereign,” very few women. I did 
not know him through and through, but I could 
guess then, and I can guess better now. That Charles 
would have been a greater King, have achieved a 
finer triumph for himself and England had he played 
the strong straight game from the very beginning, 
History is eager to assure us. But he was aware that 
he himself was neither strong nor straight ! and so 
he played the game as best he knew. I believe that 
only the line he took led him along the flowery paths 
— in the world’s eyes — of his quarter-century as King 
of England. I believe (I too may be wrong, for I 
also have my kink), remembering the temper of the 
English for the half-century following the Restora- 
tion, that England would have had none of him in 
a very few years had he laid down his mask, certainly 
over the vexed question of his religion. And sub- 
tract Charles — and we may be sure his brother James 
along with him ! — what would have become of England, 


18 


My Two Kings 


any time in the sixties, for instance? Cromwell and 
his influence and work were as if they had never been, 
Monmouth was a child, William of Orange a year 
younger. England would have fallen, helplessly en- 
tangled into a republican net of her own devising, 
into the jaws of France. 

Charles took the pay of France — why should Madame 
Stuart deny what all the world knows? — but he kept 
the heel of Louis from England’s neck. And therefore, 
because of this one man, reviled, execrated, held up 
to the derision of hate or ( still more galling) the affec- 
tionate condoning of cynical sinners, a man of whom 
none of us plumbed the whole mystery or learnt all 
the secret, England — the England which had slain his 
father — remained a monarchy, and Charles II went 
lonely on his way through life and went lonely to his 
unhonoured grave. 

But one woman who looked on has tried to write 
something of it all, yet, Stuart as she is, keeping 
something of it all back. Never did any Stuart lay 
all his cards on the table. Some day it will be found 
that we played each his game with a method, that 
we gave much as we exacted much, but in the locked 
cells of our inmost souls we all guarded some unseen 
love, some vague belief, some unattainable ideal. 
Charles II died with his secret unpublished. 

This was the man I knew! Bad, but a good 
friend to me. And have you ever known another in- 
stance of a good woman whose best friend was a bad 
man? 

Partisanship apart, there is no doubt one has to 
do one thing or the other — love or loathe a Stuart! 
This woman of Stuart blood loved her own people, 
but saw clearly according to her ability; much was 
hid still, from much her virtue preserved her; she was 
no politician, nor was she of weight in the nation’s 
affairs. Still, she saw . . . and I write. If I write 


Nepean Introduces Stuart 


19 


nothing new, then after all History knew all about 
everything! If I put matters on a somewhat different 
footing, then it is true that a door behind me has 
remained ajar. 


This is not a novel — I can’t write one. This is 
not a diary — I never could keep one. It is a rambling, 
disjointed, personal account of the life I seem to re- 
member, the affections I feel that I experienced, the 
sorrows I believe that I suffered between two and three 
hundred years ago. It aims at no definite result, it 
reveals no important secrets, it points no moral. There 
is nothing to be said for it but that it is a labour of 
love — love for those who bore some people, shock others, 
irritate a great many, and, Puritans will tell you, are 
worked to death in fiction. 

But this is not fiction. 





















MY FIRST INTERVIEW WITH KING 
CHARLES 



























p 








CHAPTER II 


MY FIRST INTERVIEW WITH KING CHARLES 

The past is the past! — the dust of death lies grey on the shining 
eyes. 

Smoke from the embers rises, circles and sinks and dies, — 

But a gay ghost dances through drifting mists with gold on her 
tumbling hair, 

And a Stuart voice rings silver, like bells on the evening air, 

0 form eternally lovely! O face everlasting-fair! 

La belle Stuart. 

M. N. 

1 have chosen my title for more than one reason. The 
following work covers the period of my life from the 
time I first went to live in London in 1674 until the 
spring of 1686. Kinswoman and friend of King 
Charles II and his son, I was that, never more, and, 
to my extreme good fortune, never less ! 

This book is written as I might have written my 
autobiography now ; these are the memoirs of my 
seventeenth-century self, and are about as interest- 
ing and as valuable as all memoirs of those who 
are not public characters, who played no visible 
part in History, and who, though entitled to their 
own opinions, are probably no better qualified to 
express them than their neighbours. If there is too 
much of Madame Stuart in these pages, why, I can 
but say that Madame Stuart held Mrs. Evan Nepean’s 
pen, and I can give no further explanation of this 
than what will be found in the course of the ensuing 
volume. 

Of my life before I went to Whitehall I remember 
nothing at all ! 


23 


24 


My Two Kings 


It has taken me some time to realise that I was 
a kinswoman of Frances Stuart, Duchess of Rich- 
mond, who was also a connection of the King’s, 
her father being Dr. Stuart, the third son of Lord 
Blantyre. She married the fourth Duke of Rich- 
mond, likewise a relation of King Charles, 1 eloping 
with him from Court to do so, as all the world knows. 
She never had any children, and on her husband’s 
death in 1672, the title fell into abeyance (to be 
revived for Louise de Querouaille’s son in 1675). She 
never married again. This beautiful woman has always 
been of interest to me, with her French upbringing, 
her great loveliness, and her virtue, at any rate, while 
a girl at Whitehall, in the face of the strongest pos- 
sible temptations. She was seven years younger than 
I, being born about 1647, and, therefore, two years 
Monmouth’s senior. She returned to Court, having 
lost some of her beauty through smallpox, to be one 
of Queen Catherine’s ladies of the Bedchamber — the 
Queen had been very kind to her in spite of the knowl- 
edge of Charles’s devotion, but I think she trusted 
Frances, and for all I know (or indeed care) had 
reason to do so. 

As far as I can piece things together and come to 
some sort of memory, I married another Stuart 
cousin, and did not change my name ; I believe him 
to have been a soldier who left me a widow at about 
thirty-three in the early seventies, my impression 
being that I was born circa 1640, thus making me 
almost exactly half way in age between Charles II 
and his son Monmouth. I married very young, 
evidently, as my son was practically grown up by 
the time of his father’s death, and had also followed 
his father’s profession. I confess at once that the 
figures of my husband and son are shadowy ; the 

i He was so nearly related that the King was “his nearest 
collateral heir”! 


First Interview with King Charles 


25 


former was never at Whitehall, the latter only on rare 
occasions. I think he was a born fighter, and was 
always on active service whenever possible. He was 
killed at Bothwell Brig, and onr little property in 
Hertfordshire then passed entirely into my hands. It 
is certain that I was left very poor, and I now realise 
what has puzzled me previously — that my acknowl- 
edgment as a relative by the King, and his most 
generously assigning me a couple of rooms in the 
Palace, after his getting to know and taking a great 
fancy to me, were owing first of all to my kinship 
with the beautiful Duchess of Richmond. I went to 
her for a visit in 1674, during her retirement owing 
to her widowhood, and she was not seen much at Court 
except when on duty occasionally — Catherine’s ladies 
often found their position almost nominal — after her 
husband’s death. 

I was no longer young, my hair was turning grey, if 
face and figure still retained their youthfulness. I 
had no illusions about my possible future or ambi- 
tions for a career of gallantry, but I was a Stuart 
born, bred, and educated, and my deep loyalty to the 
King had always led me to long for a nearer view of 
him, and if possible, for a post of some kind that should 
bring me into contact with the Court. 

I was lucky, as it turned out, past all belief. 

I had met the Duchess of Richmond once or twice, 
and was always amused (and have been so ever 
since) at the way in which the writers of the day 
considered her a fool. Highly educated she was not, 
but she had plenty of spirit, an immense sense of 
humour, tact, and an esprit, learnt, if not born with 
her at Louis XIV’s Court, and a charm for me, as 
she most certainly had for Charles! — which I do not 
attempt to excuse. She became somewhat eccentric 
as she grew older, and to this day I cannot think why 
she never remarried — she certainly only married her 


26 


My Two Kings 


cousin to escape Charles ! — possibly she never really 
cared for any one. But she was a dear to me, and 
I owe her a deep debt of gratitude. 


I waited upon her on my coming to London ; I 
seem to see myself first on receiving an invitation to 
leave my lowly lodgings and come to her in her fine 
town house — the vision is blurred — I think it was the 
Jermyn Street house, but I am uncertain. 

My first clear sight of things shows a tall, finely 
furnished room, distinctly of the state apartment 
order, yet bright with masses of roses, great windows 
admitting a flood of sunshine, and good furniture, 
if old-fashioned, while carpets and hangings were cer- 
tainly mellowed with time and age! She only took 
a small allowance from the King, and was never a 
wealthy woman at any period of her life. I can see 
myself, sitting on a low seat beside the empty fire- 
place — I gather therefore that this took place in the 
summer of 1674. Frances Richmond, tall, graceful, 
with exquisite hands and arms, legs and feet, a some- 
what long but perfectly straight nose like an old 
statue, with the Stuart slenderness, the same heavy- 
lidded long eyes and a tilt at the corner of the upper 
lip that always reminded me of Charles, sat a little 
way apart in one of the windows. I was working, 
as befitted my character of poor relation, her lovely 
hands were idle in her lap; but busy or unemployed, 
we were talking merrily. She and I had one great 
quality in common, our love of laughter. So gay 
were we, and the room looking out upon the gardens 
at the back, that an arrival was unnoticed — that of 
a coach, of moderate dimensions and modest decora- 
tion, very suitable for Royalty semi-incognito ! — and 
with no more ceremony a couple of the Duchess’s 
lackeys threw open the double doors, and there en- 


First Interview rtiith King Charles 27 

tered a very tall dark gentleman in black satins, at- 
tended only by another, already known to me, and one 
of Frances’s many adorers, Lord Mulgrave, whom I 
never liked, and in this existence detest cordially ! 

“Ah, my King!” cried Frances, coming from the 
window swiftly, light as a reed in the wind. “So 
you come again to visit your faithful relation?” and 
she swept him a deep curtsey and a lesser one to 
Mulgrave. It is perhaps characteristic of me that 
I signalised my first actual meeting with Charles II 
by the downfall of my employment ! — my work, a 
typical piece of Stuart period embroidery, white 
satin worked with silks and spangles, bullion and 
beads, fell, materials and all, from my lap to the 
floor as I rose, and drew back, on suddenly realis- 
ing that it was my Sovereign who had thus casually 
walked in, — and indeed it is the truth that he and 
I met first across a floor scattered with the upset 
details of my industry. Frances Richmond indicated 
me with a gay laugh across the wreckage as : 
“Another cousin, Sire, Charlotte Stuart, your kins- 
woman and mine, and ready, I’ll swear, from what 
she’s been telling me, to prove herself your faithful 
servant !” 

“Madame Stuart,” said King Charles, “you have 
begun our acquaintance by building a barrier between 
us. Must we stand separated by all these pretty 
trifles, or shall John get a besom and sweep a way 
through for me?” I was blushing with some con- 
fusion and a certain annoyance at my clumsiness, 
but the idea of a few scattered silks and sequins divid- 
ing me from the King, and his suggestion that ‘John,’ 
that very fine gentleman the Earl of Mulgrave, should 
play housemaid for him, overcame my shyness with 
merriment. 

“Why, Your Majesty,” I retorted, “I was but 
laying an offering of my handiwork, albeit in a raw 


28 


My Two Kings 


state, at your feet. Just one step, Sire, and you can 
cross the barrier if you will!” This was some sort 
of impudence, but I knew in a trice the atmosphere I 
was in — the informal gay friendship between Stuart 
and Stuart, and with a sudden resolve I called the 
tune of our future attitude towards each other, or 
rather, followed Charles’s easy jesting lead, and met 
his mood half way. 

He did more! — one long stride of the fine straight 
silk-stockinged legs, and he was over my barrier, and 
for the first time in my life the big slender brown 
hand, half veiled with transparent lace-bordered lawn, 
adorned with one great ring where gleamed redly a 
splendid ruby, rested on mine, and was met by my 
lips as I sank to the floor in my lowest Reverence. 
Country mouse as I might have been, I knew Court 
manners; Frances herself was an open book where the 
intelligent might read much in a few hours, and she 
stood beside us both, laughing from one to the other 
in her quick amused way, saying, “Oh, my child” 
(and I several years her senior!) “you’ll find it takes 
more than a bit of women’s work to delay His Majesty 
once he is bent on having his will!” and she turned 
to him with a great crimson rose, slipping it into the 
buttonhole of his long straight coat. He looked at 
me over her lovely bent head as she stooped to arrange 
it firmly. 

“Madame, the Duchess says that of me, knowing 
that she never let me have my own way!” — with a 
queer little uplift of an eyebrow. All the world knew 
the history of that affair between them, and of her 
victory; all the world knew also that Mulgrave was 
among many others who sued in vain. 

“Are you as self-willed ? — these Stuarts /” he 
ejaculated suddenly, as if he had been a Cromwell at 
least. 

“Troublesome people, Your Majesty, to the rest of 


First Interview with King Charles 29 

the world; good friends, I think, to each other. At 
least there never was a family to approach them!” 
I cried, with a sudden warm feeling towards all bearers 
of my name, above all to this kindly, witty, great 
gentleman, whose devoted slave I was from that moment 
forth, who would take the trouble to set a poor simply- 
attired widow at her ease, just because she was of 
his blood and ready to answer him back with any 
nonsense he chose to talk. Frances settled the rose 
with a little pat. 

“There, Sire, now all we three black crows must 
try to be a little gayer. My lord,” to Mulgrave, a 
trifle aloof, resplendent in scarlet cloth with a gorgeous 
gold-fringed sash and gloves, “don’t you feel you’ve 
walked into a nunnery by mistake? Nay, I can’t find 
you a rose too, I have none to match you. My cousin 
and I,” she held out a white one to me and took another 
herself, “will wear the emblem of the Stuarts, His 
Majesty wears that of England!” 

“Well, Britannia 1 should know all about it,” quoth 
Charles with a laugh. 

The Duchess was rearranging the roses, Mulgrave, 
his hand on his heart, pleading in the exaggerated 
seventeenth-century fashion with a good deal of fervour 
behind the fine phrasing, the King looked smilingly at 
them both. 

“Odds my life, John, we’re good friends to each 
other, but we can be troublesome people to the rest 
of the world. Madame — sit,” he drew me down on 
the tapestried Elizabethan settee behind us, he with 
his back to the outer sunlight, looking darker than 
ever, but for the flash of his beautiful teeth and the 
glimmer of his brilliant eyes, half turning, with that 
strange saturnine melancholy face of his, lit with its 
inward, unchanging humorousness, bent upon me. 

i Frances Stuart sat to Roettier for the first figure of Britannia 
on the coinage. 


30 


My Two Kings 


“Now they’ll quarrel very happily for a while. You 
and I, mistress, will make each other’s acquaintance 
and quarrel as happily too, eh? One of us, are you? 
We should have met before. Ah, I see . . . ?” with 
the ghost of a question in his voice, and he laid his 
hand for a moment on my deep black skirts, picked 
up a little fold of the material of my long train , 1 and 
let it drop again. “Now you are here with her Grace 
your fair cousin — fair to you?” 

“Sire,” I said, “the most beautiful woman I have 
ever seen.” He nodded. 

“And kind? she is not always; behold the torture 
of John! I at least have a rose,” he smiled. 
“And you will come to Court with her soon, nay, not 
to one of the great receptions, I dare swear neither 
you nor she feels like dancing yet, but later, if your 
name is Stuart” — he glanced across the room at 
Frances — “I shall see you grace my ball-room with 
a good will.” 

“Ah,” I answered, “I’m an old woman, Sire, and 
my dancing days are over.” 

“Oddsfish, are they so?” said Charles, and threw 
back his head to laugh with a gesture I was to know 
so well. 

“If you’re an old woman, Madame, then I’m 
Methuselah himself, but I dance, and I’ll dance these 
many years yet, if my fair subjects are kind enough 
to accept me as partner. So if your dancing days 
are over, I can promise you this, your dancing nights 
shall begin ! — come, you won’t belie your name. 
We can all tread a measure — except my brother 
James,” added His Majesty, thoughtfully taking a 
pinch of snuff. “Poor James, he’s not so light 
hearted as the rest of us, or light headed, perhaps, 

1 A seventeenth-century widow wore a train almost like one 
worn at a modern Court. 


First Interview with King Charles 31 

certainly not light footed! But you shall see, some 
day; we’ve all our old age before us, you and I,” and 
he patted my gown lightly. “Meantime, we must 
have you on more decorous occasions” (he rose). “My 
cruel lady — Ah! John, you have no luck at all — will 
you honour us with your presence at supper to-morrow 
night? I have some French music that should please 
you, knowing of old your taste for it. And do you 
bring Madame Stuart with you, Her Majesty will 
be glad. She” — he looked from Frances’s face to mine 
and back again — “She will put up with another of the 
name, I do not doubt.” 

It is to be feared that I laughed quite as much 
at this last half-soliloquy, made in his inimitable 
ruminating, quizzing fashion, as did either the Duchess 
or Charles himself. Lord Mulgrave looked indulgently 
on, as if at a group of tiresome children for whom 
he was more or less responsible, ere he turned to the 
door to bid the footmen see the coach waited in readi- 
ness. The dying sun sparkled on the fallen gewgaws 
at my feet and the flaming crimson rose among the 
King’s dark curls, repeating the blood-red flash of 
the great ruby on his finger. 

“Then till to-morrow night,” he said, and he put 
out a hand to each of us. We stooped simultaneously 
to kiss them, and he nodded at Frances and then at 
me. “Be good, my ladies.” 

“Why, we’re always that !” she cried, laughing 
again. 

“So you are,” said Charles. “So you are. Fie 
upon you, you disgrace the family traditions!” and 
he was gone, Mulgrave bowing and wheeling after 
him as he passed through the door, the Duchess 
following them to the head of the stairs. I heard 
her ringing voice and her gay laugh echoing back, 
and Charles’s deep strong bass returning quip for 
quip. I went down on my knees and picked up my 


32 My Two Kings 

scattered work with a smile on my lips. I had found 
another friend. 


Back came Frances Richmond into the big with- 
drawing-room, and across it with that delightful float- 
ing step of hers. 

“La, my dear! now you shall see Whitehall, and 
as I wished you to see it, not one of those crowded 
noisy balls that I sometimes think the very mobile 
has access to, but en intime, just a few of us, and 
some really fine music — His Majesty takes care of 
that; and you shall meet my worst friends and my 
best enemies!” and she slipped her fingers through my 
arm and patted my hand as if I had been a girl she 
was taking into society for the first time. “I declare 
I’m getting rusty, I’ve not been summoned by the 
Queen since some time before she went for Bath. 
Well, I must polish myself — and find a gown to go 
in. Come upstairs and we will get my women to 
bring out my dresses and you shall advise me. Oh, 
never mind your work. Shall we send a messenger 
after my lord Mulgrave to come back with a broom? 
I wish he had been made to pick it all up, he would 
have hated it so. His dignity is always being out- 
raged by His Majesty.” (“Or you,” I suggested.) 
“Or me. He can’t see a joke, for all he’s so clever 
and writes such fine verses — oh! but so dull. Give 
me my reprobate Rochester. You won’t be shocked 
at Court, by the way?” She paused with me on 
the stairs and looked at my face with the Stuart 
tilt of the head, side-long out of the fine almond 
eyes. 

“Shocked !” I cried, almost annoyed. “My dear 
Duchess, am I so hopelessly a nun (as you suggested 
to Lord Mulgrave), or a good city bourgeoise? You’ll 
find I shall take some shocking.” 


First Interviexv xttith King Charles 33 

“You’ll get it, I’ll wager,” returned Frances. “We 
are not nuns at Whitehall.” 

“I understand you are not,” I said drily, and we 
both went on mirthfully to her room. 

“Nay,” in answer to a question of mine, as her 
women threw open presses and armoires, and laid upon 
the great bed gown after gown, “I wear no weeds 
there now, ’tis over a year. The King thinks them 
gloomy, but I won’t give in to him altogether; oh no, 
I never do.” She smiled mischievously again. “So it 
had better be the purple velvet, I think,” she said 
swiftly in French to the Parisian maids she always 
kept, “or the grey satin — come, show Madame Stuart, 
and she shall choose for me.” (Madame Stuart chose 
the purple velvet.) 

“It will be pleasure enough to sqe you en grande 
tenue,” I said. “Why was I not in town when you 
were still Frances Stuart, and I could have seen you 
when you first came from France?” 

“Yes, young and beautiful!” interrupted the 
Duchess. “Young and beautiful (no smallpox then), 
and silly, and a spoilt child at Court. How I used to 
make his Grace the Duke of Buckingham build card 
houses for me by the hour, to keep him out of mis- 
chief, while he thought he was going to get me into 
it !” She smiled still more naughtily. “Then — 
well, then I married and became his niece !” — she 
turned up her eyes and folded her hands — “and now 

I’ll go to Whitehall so good and quiet and You’d 

better let me wear the grey after all, and look as 
demure as a Quaker. No? Well, then I must be im- 
posing and heavily gorgeous. Get out the diamonds, 
Hortense !” 

They were produced, splendid old-fashioned jewels 
belonging to her husband’s family, and an exquisite 
pearl necklace and pendant. 

“Poor Charles,” she said, “he gave me those, and 


34 


My Two Kings 


then, you see, I sent them back when I ran away to 
be married to my lord Duke, and he sent them back 
to me, and I — why, I did try to send them back to 
him again, but he would not take them.” She gave 
a little quick laugh as if at her own thoughts. “So 
one can’t quarrel for ever, when the past is the past, 
and the King is the King, and — well — here they are 
and they’ll be all the better for an airing.” 

She laid them on the table beside the diamonds, 
telling her maid to see that the settings were polished 
by the morrow. In my severely plain blacks I stood 
by the bed looking with whole-hearted admiration — 
and with no ulterior motive, I vow — at the finery on it. 

“Now’s for you!” cried the Duchess, swiftly 
wheeling round. “No false pride, my cousin. I 
take you to Court and I have the pleasure of dressing 
you, if you’ll do me the honour of wearing one of 
my poor old gowns? Hortense, the black and white 
brocade with the French lace — no, the violet flowered 
gauze ” 

I stopped her. “Dearest Duchess, you are all too 
good to me, but, if it is permitted at Court, let me 
retain my sable plumage. I’ll gladly and gratefully 
borrow a black gown from you if you will let me, you 
know I have no full dress at all, but. . . 

She turned from her women, who were diligently 
searching her wardrobe. “My dear,” she said, “set 
me down as a superstitious fool, but don’t go first to 
Whitehall in mourning. I ask it as a favour — why, 
I can’t tell you. I have it!” And she pointed to a 
press as yet unopened. “The silver and black silk,” 
she cried triumphantly. In another moment they had 
spread out for me one of the most charming gowns 
I had ever seen, a thing of soft yet thick dull-surfaced 
silk, black, shot (as we should now call it) with dull 
silver, making a sort of dark grey that glimmered 
and shone as the folds moved. The flowing skirts were 


First Interview with King Charles 


35 


caught back at the sides with embroidered knots of 
silver and black pearls, the long straight bodice was 
wrought with the same — dullest silver, tiniest pearls — 
a sober yet adorably graceful gown, exceedingly rich 
yet extremely subdued. 

“Ah!” I breathed in deepest admiration. “Will you 
truly lend me that? I have just one jewel that I can 
wear, and that will be worthy of it, I hope,” and I 
drew from under my high-fitting black bodice a splen- 
did string of pearls such as was then in vogue, short, 
just encircling the base of the throat, but beautifully 
graduated and matched, and of wonderful lustre for 
all they were black, or rather, the actual colour of 
the gown, darkest silver grey. 

“My dear soul !” exclaimed Frances, while her 
French maids murmured respectful surprise. “What 
a glorious thing! a fortune in itself, too. Its his- 
tory ?” 

“I know not,” I said, “my husband brought it me 
long ago, from one of his campaigns. It was given 
him, in Holland I think, by a grateful Dutch merchant 
whose hidden treasure he saved from being despoiled; 
he never would say much, but I believe it was the worthy 
reward of a brave deed.” 

I never knew more than just that — I only guessed. 
There was something behind it, some fleeting or per- 
haps not altogether fleeting romance, soldiers lead 
strange lives. Whatever the story may have been, 
whoever the heroine (if heroine there were), the pearls 
came back to England and to me, and they played their 
part in my life-story. 

When I died, only one was left to me. The rest 
were in Holland once more. 


“Come in, come in ; enter, and let me see the 
butterfly — well, the discreet night-moth, emerging 


36 


My Two Kings 


from its chrysalis !” greeted me as I scratched at 
her Grace’s bedroom door the following evening, and 
was quickly admitted by one of her under-maids. 
Hortense had dressed my hair, masses of rolled-curls 
on each side, as was then the mode, and a long lock 
pendent, brought over each shoulder. (I always wore 
two when all the world wore but one. The King 
once laughed and called them my two lovers ; I 
smiled and acquiesced — he never knew that in my 
heart I always thought of them as his curl and 
Monmouth’s from that time forth.) The glorious 
silver-woven silk flowed round me, the pearls were 
about my throat. I stepped warily into the room, 
holding my skirts laughingly but ruefully in each 
hand. 

“You forget I’m such a little woman. I shall have 
to go on stilts, my dear friend!” I said to her. 

“Lud !” cried Frances, turning right round in 
her chair before her great mirror, her beautiful hair 
hanging loose. “Indeed I forgot I was such a May- 
pole !” She was not ; she was not more than five 
feet nine inches, but in that life I was smaller than 
I am now, and not more than five feet five at the 
outside, so that her beautiful silks swept the floor 
all round me. She was somewhat sliort-waisted for 
her height, so the bodice needed no alteration to speak 
of, but ! 

“Loop the sides back, Hortense,” she said, regard- 
ing me. “So draw the draperies further apart, show 
more of the petticoat.” This was of dull silver lace 
and moderately short. “Now for the shoes — why, we 
forgot her feet !” 

“Well you might,” replied their owner grimly, 
“considering the perfection of your own. No, it’s 
of no use lending me any of yours, I shall only split 
them, my superstitious cousin, and you’ll be horrified 
at the omen. Will not my own do?” I had a good 


First Interview with King Charles 37 

pair of black silk stockings, and my shoes were of 
black velvet in the French cut, at least I had taken 
care of that. 

“They’re charming — but stay,” she pulled open a 
drawer in her toilette table. “Stitch these on to 
Madame’s shoes,” she commanded, and a pair of long 
looped silver bows, centred by pearls, was produced, 
and I sat down on the chair next her mirror and 
swung stockinged feet, while one of her maids quickly 
sewed them on my velvet slippers, and I watched 
Hortense, who had been sent to me first, deftly dress 
her beautiful mistress’s hair. 

“You’re good to look at,” I said, with my eternal 
frank enjoyment of beauty in man, woman, or child. 
“I suppose I’m to see all the beauties to-night, but 
nobody will ever beat you.” My cousin looked at 
herself in the glass, while Hortense smiled appreciatively 
at me over her head. 

“Before I took that cursed smallpox, nobody 
could,” remarked the Duchess dispassionately. “That 
I’ll allow. Now I’m good-looking enough for all 
practical purposes!” We laughed. “And for some 
less practical,” she added, in the sort of ruminative 
aside that so reminded me of the King. “As for you, 
cherie ” 

“As for me,” I answered, “I’m a good seven years 
your senior. I sit with my back to the light when 
I can, and furnish a dim corner passably.” Frances 
broke into one of the rippling fits of giggles that had 
so enlivened the Court in old days. 

“If you plan to go furnishing dim corners at White- 
hall,” she said, “I shall know what to expect. We 
dear good ladies sit in the middle of the room under 
the brightest candles and look respectably passees, 
while the sly ones each choose a quiet spot apart — as 
I used to do! — so if you’re for that game, cousin, 
come closer,” and out of a beautiful silver-gilt box 


38 


My Two Kings 


she shook several velvet patches. “One there” (she 
set it beneath my left eye on a level with the outer 
corner), “and now another” (she paused to consider) 
“on the right upper lip, and ” 

— “And that will teach my mouth to turn up again, 
not down,” said I, pressing the patch into place 
firmly, “like the King’s and yours.” 

“It’s really more like our pretty James,” she re- 
plied, laughing. “You’ve not seen our little Mon- 
mouth yet? The prettiest of all of us, egad! Eh? 
We don’t call him a Stuart, my dear, he’s a Scott, 
you see.” (Not much of a Scott about him, I swear!) 
“No Fitzroy, no Stuart, no — poor James. We call 
him ‘cousin,’ and His Highness calls him ‘nephew’ — 
when His Majesty is listening,” again her mirth 
bubbled over, “but you shall judge. That’s a nice 
shade of ceruse, and you’ve laid it on well. I like 
your grey locks, they’ll wonder at them at Court, not 
a woman will be seen with a white hair, but you 
don’t care, no? The family grizzles early, Charles was 
nearly white before he put on his perriwig. I wish 
sometimes I could see him in his own hair still — night- 
black, and thick — thick — and great heavy natural 
curls. And Monmouth, you should have seen him when 
he first came to London, he w r as a picture! Long 
ringlets to his waist, thick, too, but spun silk compared 
with the King’s.” 

“His mother’s?” I suggested slowly. Frances nod- 
ded her head. 

“Aye, I saw her once, my friend, in Paris, when I 
was a chit of a girl of about ten years. Oh, long 
before I left the French Court. It was at the house 
of a lady my mother knew. I was spending the day 
with her daughters, and as I arrived at the door a 
beautiful woman, but ill — ill! I never saw death 
written so clearly on any one’s face — came out to her 
chair, and she paused on the step to cough, a cruel 


First Interview zsfith King Charles 39 

cough, and pressed her hand to her chest. And I 
was a rash, impulsive creature” — the Duchess loved 
to speak of her youth as an age away, and her hoyden 
gaiety a matter of deplored and repented-of con- 
duct ! — “I ran up to her and put my arm round 
her and said, ‘Oh, Madame, let me help you!’ and I 
remember she smiled and said as soon as she could 
speak, ‘Ah, there rings the true Stuart voice, but no 
Stuart can help me now,’ and she looked at me with 
great hollow eyes — sad, brown, like a spaniel’s that has 
been beaten — and her lips smiled; but I saw a little 
stain of blood . . . and she stepped into her chair and 
went away. And when I asked the girls whom I had 
come to visit, ‘Who was that lovely lady with the 
terrible cough?’ they looked uncomfortable and said, 
‘Only one Mrs. Barlow. 1 Madame our mother befriends 
her, but do not say you met her, please, Fancy,’ (that 
was my old name). And when I impetuously demanded, 
‘Why not?’ their gouvernante bade me ask no more 
questions. She died soon after, I think.” 

“Of a decline,” I suggested, slipping into my 
newly decorated shoes and not meeting the Duchess’s 
eye. 

“Why, yes, of a decline, but the Duke of York will 
contradict you if you tell him so !” This with the 
ghost of a laugh again. 

“I’ll not do that,” I promised. “Why should I speak 
to his Highness of Mrs. Barlow?” 

“Why, indeed?” returned Frances Richmond 
drily. “Nor His Majesty, nor our pretty James, 
her pretty James. I told him once that he was so 
beautiful he would die young (thinking of her, poor 
soul, all the time), and he laughed with his head back, 
and vowed he was not good enough! Neither was 
she, alas ! I fear — but I don’t know. It’s ancient 


i Lucy Walter, ob. 1658. 


40 


My Two Kings 


history, sixteen years ago and — buried history to 
most of us. I told him once — that was the only 
time I ever mentioned her name, but I thought he 
might like to know. We used to quarrel so! James 
and I are a generation apart. Really I think I’m a 
year, maybe two, older than he, and that,” said her 
Grace thoughtfully, “makes me quite his aunt, though 
neither of us will ever be as old as his wife Anna, 
and she’s two years younger than he is, she says ! 
Eh bien, we’d quarrelled rather badly, and it was my 
fault, the only time it ever was my fault, of course, 
and I wanted to make it up, and I — I just told him. 
And he looked like stone, quite hard all at once, I 
could not believe he could ever look so hard, and 
repeated: ‘No Stuart can help me now,’ and then 
he suddenly broke down. Poor James, he was about 
seventeen then, as tall as he is to-day, but he just 
dropped down on a cushion next to the chair I sat 
in and put his head into my lap and cried for ever 
so long. He made me cry too, and I don’t often 
cry,” she added with a little wry face. “Crying’s of 
no use. But I sometimes think she would have been 
glad if she could have seen us both weeping for her, 
the young girl who did try to help, and the little 
boy they took away from her by force. I am a fool, 
I shall be sentimental in a moment, and that I will 
never be again. So one forgets; you’ll forget; James 
has forgotten! He adored her — he adored ‘Madame.’ 
Ah, ‘Madame!’ how I adored her at Versailles, how 
His Majesty adored her — and she’s dead, she died 
four years ago, and it might be fourteen. We go 
on .” 

She looked at me. “You’ll find the Stuarts go on, 
my dear!” 

“I’ve found it,” I replied. “I go on myself. Can’t 
you see that? And now?” — the Dtlchess’s maids drew 
back the many-coloured cotton “mob” enswathing her, 


41 


First Interview with King Charles 

and she stood up, her lovely coiffure finished, her purple 
velvet gown showing every line of her tall figure, yet 
spreading opulently about her. 

“And now?” she echoed, “my diamonds, Hor- 
tense, the earrings and the great pendant — so — and 
my pearls” (they were deftly slung round her slim 
throat), “and the pearl drop just to clasp this long 
curl behind my ear — that’s new! They’ll ask me 
did that notion come from Versailles? and I’ll say, 
‘From a far finer place, mesdames, my head!’” 
She turned about and walked once more before her 
mirror. “Ah,” she said, regarding the radiant re- 
flection, “I wish you had seen me at my best, all the 
same !” 

I rose and laughed. “It is difficult,” I replied, “to 
imagine a better than this.” 

“Take my word for it then, it was better; but this” 
— she looked back at herself just once more — “this 
is good enough still, eh? See how entirely vain we 
can be. But you’re not vain.” 

“Not vain?” I said; “I’m nothing else! Some 
day you will know me better. Vain enough, Duchess, 
to think that thirty-four is a good enough age for 
me, and grey hair good enough even for the King’s 
palace, and the exquisite dress of my most beautiful 
cousin, the loveliest thing I ever donned !” and we 
went gaily out of the room and down to her waiting 
coach. 

She was no sentimentalist; Frances Stuart never 
kissed me, never proffered “sympathy,” never “con- 
doled” with me in any of my troubles or difficulties, 
she just did kind things, she just was kind, and gay, 
and light-hearted in what the world thought the un- 
feeling selfish Stuart fashion ; I knew better. 

A few years more, and she withdrew from Court 
and her many admirers, and lived alone surrounded 
by her pets, beautiful still, every now and then flash- 


42 


My Two Kings 


ing like a meteor across public life — her latest appear- 
ance was at the Coronation of Queen Anne! — but in 
a self-chosen loneliness I cannot quite understand. If 
you always look for a Stuart’s reasons, though, you 
will not find any. At a certain point, in any Stuart, 
a door will be politely shut in your face. 

I have lingered long over this my dressing to attend 
the Court for the first time, for I see so clearly my 
fair benefactress just as she was then, at a time when 
History had ceased to gossip about her , her marvellous 
girlish bloom of the early sixties was over, and her 
part in public life had become slight. I never stayed 
with her again, there was no need for it, as will 
presently be seen, but since I owe her so large a debt, 
it is but right that I should acknowledge it. No Stuart 
could help Lucy Walter at the end of her tragic young 
life, after the death of her son and his father no Stuart 
helped me, but our cases were different. They were 
alike in one thing only, I think, we gave the Stuarts 
our hearts, and, as Charles wrote to poor early-dead 
‘Madame’ (yet very little earlier dead than Lucy), 
“You have my heart, and I cannot give you more!” 


WHITEHALL 





































CHAPTER III 


WHITEHALL 

“Ere I know it — next moment I dance at the King’s.” 

Browning. 


So I came to Whitehall ! 

There was music, heavenly music, the best I had 
ever heard, in a suite of rooms, none very large 
or imposing, leading one into another, but not the 
great saloons, the Banqueting Hall, the State Ball- 
room; just a string of some half-dozen apartments. 
One for the musicianers, and one where was set out 
an elaborate collation, one full of deftly arranged 
chairs and seats of several kinds, one empty of all 
furniture — cool, glowing with soft subdued light, 
mellowed gilding, fine pictures, gorgeous hangings, 
metal-work, carving by Grinling Gibbons, cut crystal, 
shining floors, a King’s palace on a night when he 
chose to summon a few friends — the general effect re- 
mains, the details have gone. 

I cannot recall my actual presentation to the Queen, 
but newly returned from Bath and Bristol; somehow 
I only remember her pathetic little face, her fine gown 
and jewels, her unaltering air of being out of place, 
still a stranger, after twelve years in her husband’s 
home and country ! — her halting English, her inability 
to sustain any sort of conversation — Catherine the 
Incapable, who could do but one thing, give her heart 
to one man, and he beggared in the giving. 

There are times when I look back to the Royal 
Stuarts and to those from whom they had all, and 
45 


46 


My Two Kings 


whom they sent empty away — or worse, kept by them, 
penniless, bankrupt of their own free will. And the 
Stuarts never seemed to know what they had done! 
Yet, despite these thoughts, I can answer for it that 
to some of us whom they utterly despoiled, they gave 
in return all that was worth having in life. Once, in 
this existence, a man said to me, “How much you 
give, but, by Heaven, how much you require in re- 
turn !” and I realised at that moment how completely 
a Stuart I was — long, long before I ever knew I had 
inherited a drop of their blood. I owe them no ill- 
will. I know what they gave me then, in person, as 
friendly gifts to life. I know what they have given 
me now by inheritance, and I do not complain. 

I would rather be a Stuart than any one else in 
the world, and because I know how mistaken that 
choice is, I know how completely Stuart I am! 


Of the fine company assembled that night, one or 
two stand out in my recollection, more from what I 
observed than what I can recall of my personal re- 
lations with them, even of His Majesty. I remem- 
ber best a certain incident towards the end of the 
evening. Of how my Duchess looked, I have but one 
eye-memory to go by, and that, too, was towards the 
close of the entertainment. Buckingham, whom I 
saw for the first time, was not en veine, he was ap- 
parently ill, or profoundly bored (I knew afterwards 
his star was nearing eclipse) he looked unspeakably 
overblown — a barmaid remnant of good looks 
always too extravagant — his gorgeous blue satins 
too bright, too effeminately cut, too much lace, too 
much fine lawn, heels too high, perriwig too golden 
and too curled, emphasising the ravaged, debauched 
face with its once splendid features blunted, and its 
clear skin blotched — a tragedy to me ! I saw him 


Whitehall 


47 


again soon after, looking far better, younger, and 
more like the portraits of his earlier self ; but my 
first view of him was very like my last (he fell out of 
favour soon after that time and came not to Court 
for some years), and I vow that the impression made 
on me was that of wit and birth, brains and beauty, 
misused, soiled, squandered. I thought of his still 
more handsome father, and his beauty and wit, his 
loves, his tragic death, of the heroic fighting finish 
of his other son, and now — the waning of the glories 
of this one. It was sadder than the decay of any 
woman’s looks. Buckingham has kept me, as well 
as the Duchess Frances, in absolutely helpless giggles 
for hours at a stretch by his incomparable powers 
of mimicry, carried out before his victims’ faces — 
handsome John Churchill’s “silly-silly !” Sunderland’s 
Court drawl and seductive diplomatic mannerisms ; 
Arlington’s fussy stolidity and lapses into the earlier 
manner of “Harry Bennet, who was but a very little 
gentleman !” old Clarendon’s tutorial tones when 
addressing the King; even His Highness of York’s 
stubborn repetition of certain phrases, and insolent 
drooping of heavy Stuart eyelids ; even Charles’s 
twinkle and tricks of speech and movement — nothing 
was sacred, and nobody. 

Buckingham paid no attention to me, he thought 
me beneath his notice, till one day some time later, 
at a date when he was running Monmouth for all 
he was worth, he spitefully took him off before an 
audience of whom I was one. I am no mimic in this 
life — perhaps I was then ! — anyhow, my Stuart temper 
gave me wits, and I, without a seeming effort, at 
once took off Buckingham to his face, playing his 
own game. He was clever enough to see it; in fact, 
his surprise betrayed him to the company, who, true 
to seventeenth-century tradition, were quite as well 
pleased to laugh at him as with him. After my one 


48 


My Two Kings 


little triumph his Grace of Bucks liked me none the 
better, but he paid me the compliment of noticing I 
was there! 

I do not remember anything of Lord Rochester 
that night, nor my Lord Sunderland, nor many other 
great men who must have been present. I recollect 
Lady Sunderland, chiefly, I think, because at one time 
I was seated next to her and she did me the honour 
of being deftly and admirably rude, to my immense 
inward amusement. You see, on our arrival, after 
my presentation to Her Majesty, and a word of greet- 
ing from the King, I made a point of retiring more 
or less into the background to a spot from which I 
could see what was going on, therefore most of the 
guests had no idea who I was. Frances herself was 
held in talk for some time by the Queen and another 
of her ladies, and finally surrounded by several men, 
among whom were Lord Mulgrave and Sir George 
Hamilton, another of her old adorers, now the (first) 
husband of another Frances, Sarah Jennings’ sister, 
afterwards Fighting Dick Talbot’s Duchess. She sat, 
as she herself had predicted, in the center of the room, 
the lesser-born ladies as a rule occupying the sides or 
even corners — not that the Countess of Sunderland 
would have considered herself as classed under that 
heading, that “great golden pearl,” still fair and very 
splendid to behold, with a profusion of flaxen ringlets 
and white shoulders, and an over-fine gown of amber 
and gold velvet brocade of huge design. But she, like 
me, as I afterwards learnt, did a good deal of looking-on 
when at Court! 

The guests arrived at various times, just after we 
got there the French Lady made her appearance 
with some empressement. I found her less lovely 
than I had anticipated, but with the small, regular, 
immobile features of a woman who would probably 
live to a great age (as she did), a certain Parisian 


Whitehall 


49 


quality we now call chic, and with decided capability 
underlying her babyish expression. I was deeply in- 
terested in her, and admired, unwillingly, the way 
in which she carried off a distinctly difficult gown of 
bright red of an almost brick-dust hue, adorned with 
some priceless lace which I at once recognised as the 
latest from France, and no jewels nor patches at all, 
her perfectly glorious hair evidently being so plenti- 
ful as to prove hard to arrange in the new vogue. 
She took a seat by one of the windows and apparently 
complained of the heat, fanning herself a little petu- 
lantly with an exquisitely painted fan, glancing towards 
the closed curtains with an almost invisible swiftness 
from her usually inexpressive and somewhat obliquely- 
set if fine dark eyes. A couple of gentlemen moved 
forward and drew back the hangings, letting in a flood 
of moonlight. 

I see that so well, Louise de Querouaille’s slight 
but dignified figure, in a magnificent elbow chair — she 
never sat in one without arms ; I thought of the 
prized honour of the tabouret at Versailles and smiled 
to myself ! — the great window draperies of golden 
damask behind her, and the strange mingling of 
moonlight and candleshine on her face and neck. 
King Charles sauntered across and made some 
amused remark upon the grateful coolness; he took 
up his stand beside her, between her chair and the 
open casement, and I was free to turn my attention 
to him. 

Perhaps, among all the pictures of him stored in 
my memory, this stands out the first that is perfectly 
clear, many as there were to follow it. He was wear- 
ing a colour unusal to him, as I afterwards learned — 
a brown brocade, as nearly as possible approaching 
the hue of cedar-wood. Against the golden cur- 
tain, the gilding and the brown of the panelled and 
decorated wall behind it, leant the tall, thin, big- 


50 


My Two Kings 


boned, loose-limbed but always graceful figure, with 
the large but perfectly shaped hands and feet, the 
heavy black per ri wig, the gipsy darkness of the ugly 
but eternally attractive face , 1 standing out in artistic 
harmony and contrast. Not a feature of Charles’s 
face was anything but ugly, save his deeply sad, 
deeply humorous eyes, so nearly black as to seem 
entirely so at night, and his perfect teeth — everything 
else was out of drawing and strangely over-accentuated, 
“harsh,” in the term of his time — the olive skin hang- 
ing so loosely as to make the lines on his face deep 
furrows in appearance, though, as with all Stuarts, 
he had a quality of perennial youth about him that 
was unmistakeable to the end. There he stood, lean- 
ing back a little, bending a little over the Duchess of 
Portsmouth at times when the music rose louder, oc- 
caisonally taking a pinch of snuff, once stooping to 
caress a beautiful little red and white spaniel, that 
stretched itself upon its hind legs to his hand. “Mrs. 
Carwell” talked quickly in the French way, at times 
very seriously, in a low voice. He listened chiefly, 
and did not say much. Once he cleverly hid a yawn 
with his long thin hand, and it was at that moment 
I saw his‘face change. 


Through the door opposite entered a late comer, at 
a rush, a boyish figure that almost ran on Mercury- 
winged feet, paused, looked round, discovered the 
King and threaded its way through the intervening 
crowd, with a smile or a nod or a light laughing 
word here and there, and was beside His Majesty in 
an instant, bending low and kissing his hand. I saw 
Charles look down at the bent head, and once and 


1 “The Stuarts, when they were ugly, did the thing hand- 
somely” (Vansittart). 


Whitehall 


51 


for all said to myself : “This is where the King’s 
heart is !” Another bow, a kiss of Mme. de Ports- 
mouth’s fingers, a lithe young back straightened, 
dark curls, but not so dark as Charles’s, flung back, 
bright soft eyes roaming gaily round the room, the 
sweetest voice I have ever heard, speaking slowly, 
for all the quick movements of the figure, an explana- 
tion, a sort of smiling apology (quite sure that none 
was required except by Court custom!) as to the 
lateness of the hour, — and some one behind my chair 
commented in a carefully whispered sneer, “Late as 
usual! These ladies, how they make a man lose count 
of time!” 

As I still watched, the new-comer made a swift half- 
bow, half-backward step or two away from the King, 
and moved behind the Duchess of Richmond’s place, 
a hand on the carved frame of the settee on which 
she then sat with another lady — the Countess of Fal- 
mouth, I think, who, if memory serves me, married 
the famous Lord Dorset en secondes noces somewhere 
about then — bending over between them both with a 
gay greeting; and I can see, as if I saw it but yester- 
day, Frances’s handsome face, elusively resembling his, 
raised, along with one exquisite hand for his kiss, 
with the easy grace and joyous mirth of an old friend 
or relation. 

And I said to myself, “ Now I know, this is the 
Duke of Monmouth. How dull of me not to recognise 
him before!” 

They remained there a moment or two, Lady Fal- 
mouth, also beautiful and warmly dark, smiling and 
listening amiably to the chatter between them, 
Frances, all animation, evidently in a teasing mood, 
and Monmouth, still smiling, still holding her hand 
upraised to his behind her, his face in half shadow 
under the candles immediately above it, “that most 
beautiful face ever seen on man or woman.” I took 


52 


My Two Kings 


in every detail of his dress and frankly admired it 
more than that of any other man present — a complete 
suit of oyster-white silk, thick, creamy in texture, 
almost pale-grey, round the slim waist a sash of a 
perfect shade of malachite green, green silk stockings, 
and among the laces at his wrist a bracelet of emeralds, 
evidently intended to be hidden (at any rate, more 
or less!), and a perfect square emerald, diamond-set, 
at his throat, confining a narrow green velvet ribbon 
that tied his Venetian point cravat. So I watched 
them from my quiet corner, and saw the King’s eyes 
stray that way, and smile with them in their laughter ; 
and then I heard the Duchess of Richmond’s voice 
raised a little. 

“Yes, another cousin, mon enfant. I have carried 
her here to-night at His Majesty’s request to see all 
you fine gentlemen. She will make a new play- 
fellow for you,” and she turned about in her seat 
and looked in my direction, caught my eye, and 
smiled and nodded at me. Monmouth followed her 
gaze with the quickness of a child eager for a fresh 
toy. 

And now I have to relate one of the funniest inci- 
dents of my career at the Restoration Court, con- 
sidering the part that I was to play, for, courtier as 
he was, nothing was more obvious in my sight than 
the fact that the first glimpse Monmouth had of me 
was a great disappointment to him ! I saw it, and 
it is useless to deny that I may pride myself on having 
a share of the Stuart humour, for I felt no anger 
nor humiliation myself — I merely understood, in a 
twinkling, that this delightful young man, then at the 
zenith of his victorious career where women were con- 
cerned, who flew from mistress to mistress as light 
hearted as he was light footed, had hoped from 
Frances Richmond’s description that he would find a 
young girl as a new amusement and possible victim, — 


Whitehall 


53 


though victim is never the word to use where Monmouth 
is concerned, somehow! 

And, when he followed her glance, he found a 
grey-haired lady in sober attire that loomed black 
in shadow, a woman who was in fact the mother of 
a grown son who looked nearly as old as Monmouth 
himself. I dropped my eyes to my hands, folded de- 
murely on my lap; not that I wished to avoid his 
look, but that if I were not to laugh aloud I must 
make a supreme effort to smother my mirth. “A 
new playfellow?” I thought; but Frances was right 
and I — and his disappointed Grace — were wrong, as 
was proved within the next few minutes ! 

The music had ceased for a while: the guests 
mostly rose, changed attitudes and partners, moved 
about the gold and brown room, a brave company 
truly, of inimitably handsome English men and 
women of the upper classes, perfectly dressed, perfect, 
also, in their easy self-possession and accomplished 
wit and insolence of bearing; — changed and shifted 
in a glitter of jewels and embroideries, flushes of 
intense colour, gleaming white of beautiful shoulders 
and draperies of ivory and silver, sheen of great 
pearls, and a hundred shades of brune and blonde 
locks — the ripples of the men’s perukes, the long 
ringlets and massed curls of the women’s coiffures — 
and behind them the figure of their King by his 
mistress’s chair, russet against gold, his dark eyes see- 
ing all. 

I do not believe Charles II was an extremely clever 
man, I am quite sure I was a woman of average in- 
telligence, but I do think this: that he and I lived 
open-eyed in a world of fools whose gaze turned 
inwards if anywhere ! and who, mostly, failed to 
notice me all my life, and beheld him, their King, 
with eyes which were darkened. That is the only 
way I can account for it. I am aware that few 


54 


My Two Kings 


people ever penetrated to that guarded heart — oh yes, 
I know what “love” he gave his women, he was a man 
of great strength and vitality, of very strong pas- 
sions; he “loved” often and much, as did his son, but 
— why, Henrietta Wentworth and I could have told 
you what their real love could be ! — she, heart of 
Monmouth’s heart, I, just the friend of both Charles 
and Monmouth — and I tell you that I went to a lonely 
old age long years after they were both dead, warm 
still with the memory of the love I had seen Charles 
give to Monmouth and Monmouth give to Henrietta; 
and I would not have exchanged their abiding affec- 
tion for me for the “love” they ever gave any other 
woman. 

I own to have travelled far in these last lines from 
the moment when my cousin Frances came through 
the crowd to my corner crying, “You have sat there 
long enough with your big eyes fixed on us all as if 
we were a raree show. Stand up and say something 
kind to this poor boy who is so mighty bashful and 
has no one to speak to !” and in a burst of laughter 
Monmouth and I met for the first time. 

If I were horribly ancient — when you look for a 
girl of sixteen and find a woman old enough to be her 
mother, it is tiresome! — at least I could see a joke. 
My dear James, always my dear James from that 
night forth to me, I saw many jokes later that 
escaped you, but none better, after all, I think, than 
our first meeting and the way it turned out. For 
as he straightened himself after his salute to pay some 
usual compliment in his delightful voice, with the 
Stuart side-glance and the tilt of the Stuart lip, the 
band in the next room but one struck up a quaint 
little rambling air — quick, sweet, familiar — and into 
his eyes, that before had betrayed no particular interest 
in me, flashed a sudden gleam of recollection, answered 
by the same flash, I vow, in mine. 


Whitehall 


55 


“Why,” I cried, and paused, as he also said, 
“Why — Oh! that tune, it is the old, old , old dance 
I learned”— he, too, paused— “in Holland, when I 
was little more than a baby ! My lady Duchess !” 
he wheeled upon Frances, “you know it? Surely 
} I * * * * * 7 ou danced it in your young (very young!) days at 
Versailles? — No? Madame,” he was back again to me, 
“ you did — you have been in Holland?” 

“Never, sir,” I said, “but it was taught me by 
one who had been there. I did not know that any 
one in England could dance it but myself.” 

“I can!” he cried, with that same eager pleasure 
of a child with a new toy. “Why, indeed I can, and, 
Madame, you ■”■ — he was gone through the gor- 

geous throng that made way for him, he was standing 
by Charles, a word, a pleading, a laugh, and he was 
back again almost ere Frances had finished a slow 
infinitely amused smile and a pat on my wrist with 
her fan. 

“So you dance, my nun, after all? Oh, then, James 
will never let you sit in a corner again!” 

I began to speak. I suppose I tried to explain I 

was really still in mourning. I could not dream of 

“It will be a Royal command, you’ll see. You will not 
be asked!” 


I was not asked, and that is the truth. 

My debut at Whitehall I signalised scandalously by 

taking the floor of the adjoining room to that in which 

we were all assembled — a saloon cleared for dancing, 

as a matter of fact, if required — while in the one be' 

yond the company of fiddlers went on with the little 

winding murmuring tune. I was caught by the 
hand, I was led through a surprised assemblage of 
great lords and ladies by an impetuous boy whom 
I had only known one minute, and handed to the 


56 


My Two Kings 


center of the apartment. Monmouth faced me, struck 
a light foot on the parquet and turned to the band 
with an order. The music ceased, only to begin again, 
and I wondered in my heart if this were a dream or a 
reality, sank to the polished boards in a long swoon- 
ing curtsey, recovered, looked at him, laughed to his 
laughter, and swam forward into the opening steps 
of the old single coranto. 

Through the width of the double doors I could still 
see Charles standing, smiling, watching us both 
keenly ; and, with the sudden realisation that I was 
on probation, being tried, that these two, father and 
son, the finest dancers in the kingdom, would judge, 
and accept or refuse me as a kinswoman worthy of 
their attention by my performance that night, I set 
my teeth and made a vow to myself that I would 
prove my quality. Dancing was, dancing is, my 
passion — therein lay my luck! (A man who paid 
court to me at Whitehall in after years, sarcastically 
remarked, as he had heard me say myself, that my 
heart was in my feet, nowhere else. “Ah, sir,” I 
said, “it is better so, than that my feet should be 
on your heart”; and we parted friends and neither 
of us a penny the worse.) But I think of that dance 
now, and laugh with the sheer joy of the memory 
of my partner’s skill, never, and I have danced with 
many men — all the best in England and Holland — 
had I a partner to approach Monmouth, not even the 
King himself. That perfectly built, perfectly balanced 
young frame, elastic, silk and steel, the marvellous 
“dancing ear” that is sometimes allied to a dancing 
figure and sometimes is not, that true Stuart love 
of the art, that impetuous, imperious wilfulness of 
eternal youth — thus I first knew them, and thus I 
kept, to the very end, my impression of my cousin 
James. 

The measure was a somewhat unusual one for its 


Whitehall 


57 


birthplace and date, swifter, less elaborate, less full 
of the dignified bowings and backings that made some 
of the dances still in vogue in those gayer, “faster” 
days, more of a ceremony than a set of steps. My 
memory held good; once his failed. He stopped, 
he burst into schoolboy merriment. “Lord, I’m 
undone !” he cried. “Odso, 1 Madame, you have 
the best of me!” as (bold, I really think beyond 
pardon!) I went on with my part alone, he stood 
and applauded, and in a moment struck his breast 
with a mock-indignant hand, a favourite trick, as 
History knows, and exclaimed, “I have it again! — 
thus, is it not? and thus,” and the music swept us 
on, and, quickening to the close, whirled us into ever- 
increasing swiftness, and left us, as I well remem- 
bered it would do, panting (even he), laughing still, 
hand in hand in the centre of the floor just as we had 
begun. 

The room was not empty now, several couples had 
filed in, and one or two groups of older people, glasses 
were raised, I was looked up and down, whispers 
passed behind fans. Conscious that I had not failed, 
but likewise suddenly acutely aware of a much too 
prominent position, I felt the colour rush up under 
my ceruse, and my laughter died suddenly. 

“Oh, my lord Duke,” I said, as bashfully as the 
girl of sixteen he had expected to see, “I should not 
have done this! His Majesty will say ” 

“His Majesty said you were to do it,” said Mon- 
mouth, his eyes crinkled up with amusement, looking 
down at me full of a boy’s unfeigned enjoyment in 
the confusion of a companion in mischief. “Eh, Sir?” 
and he glanced round. It did not reduce my blushes 
to find the King beside us, both still in our positions 

1 This known to have been Monmouth’s favourite oath, as 
“Oddsfish” was that of his father. 


58 


My Two Kings 


in the middle of the room. He put a hand on James’s 
shoulder, he turned to look from his son’s face to 
mine. 

“Welcome,” he said very softly to me, in the kind- 
est and most reassuring of voices; never did man or 
woman put one more at ease than this vilified King, 
make one feel happier, more pleased with one’s self! 
“Doubly welcome, since you’ve found your heart again. 
I see I was wrong to prophesy you would have none 
for the poor entertainment I could offer,” and he stood 
by his son, taller, darker, different and yet subtly like, 
smiling the selfsame smile. 

“If I have not found my heart, Your Majesty,” I 
said with an effort — all this blushing shamefacedness 
was “playing baby” in a woman of my standing — 
“I have apparently found my feet! But I had the 
fortune to know this old dance” . . . and then I 
stopped, for Charles was looking at me with a mouth 
that smiled still, but eyes that were unutterably 
sad. 

“Yes,” he said, “so had I — once. James and I 
were taught it when we were both young and foolish, 
and you, Mistress, you had it brought you from the 
same country? And you had as good a teacher, 
may I say it? and your teacher as apt a pupil as 
James has proved,” and he smiled upon his son 
again. 

“A good deal apter, Sir,” remarked that young 
gentleman, “since I broke down in the middle ! I have 
no memory, you know.” 

“No, James,” returned the King, “I know you 
have no memory,” and between us for one instant 
there passed a flicker of that mutual comprehension 
that never was obscured again. We understood each 
other — good. And we understood James. And he 
understood neither of us, no — but that was James 
all over. His destiny in life was not to understand, 


Whitehall 


59 


I think. I wonder how much sport the Fates would 
have had of James if he had ever understood? 


“On my life, my dear soul !” said the Duchess of 
Richmond to me, giving me another little rap with 
her fan, as her great coach swung forward from the 
entrance of the palace and rolled majestically over 
the cobbles towards home. “That was none so bad 
a beginning, but you sly ladies who sit in corners by 
preference !” 

“Do not quiz me, Duchess,” I implored penitently, 
in a rather troubled voice, “I misdoubt me ’twas foolish 
behaviour, and you know well I never intended to make 
myself conspicuous. And I do think I danced too 
soon, you should have let me go in my weeds after all, 
and then perhaps ” 

“Oh, silly,” cried Frances, laughing at my long 
face. “If you had gone in your shroud James would 
have made you dance, he would pull you out of your 
coffin if he wanted a partner! He’s a feather-brain, 
like me, but saw you ever so fine a dancer? You 
should — and shall — see him ride, and run, and at 
sword-play, and tennis, and any feat of arms or sport 
you care to name. And he’s a pretty spark, my word, 
but he walks on broken hearts — or dances over them. 
Bad all through. No, he’s not, I’ll amend it. He’s 
worthless — as yet. He’s a butterfly, or an air-bubble, 
just that — light, only light. Some day he may get 
something inside his handsome head and he may find 
he’s got a heart inside that fine broad chest of his. 
I don’t know. He’s spoilt. I can’t tell if he’s spoiled, 
it’s another thing. His mother” — she threw out her 
hands in the gloom of the coach with an absolutely 
French gesture — “and my cousin his father! What 
can you expect?” 

“I expected nothing so delightful,” I smiled. 


60 


My Two Kings 


“You’ll fall in love with him, they all do,” said her 
Grace. “I’ll give you a week to fall in, and then a 
week to fall out, mind.” 

“Don’t fear for me,” I said cynically, “I shall not 
fall in love with him. I’m seasoned. But I love him 
already. Only — he does go to one’s head rather, and 
I think he made a fool of me . . . and oh !” with a 
gasp of remembrance, “I made no adieux to Her 
Majesty! How could you let me be so remiss?” 

There was another light laugh from the Duchess. 
“Ah, Her Majesty. You did not see she had retired 
early? No, nor did anybody but her immediate 
entourage and myself, I think. Hey-dey ! Would you 
be a Queen?” This from Frances Stuart, who would 
have been a Queen herself had Catherine died a few 
years back. I could not answer for a moment. 

“Do not love a Stuart, do not marry a Stuart, do 
not serve a Stuart,” she added earnestly, her hand on 
mine. 

“Why, you did all three,” I could not help saying, 
and I got the answer I might have expected: “That 
is why I say it,” as the coach pulled up at the door 
of the house, and a Stuart Duchess and her Stuart 
kinswoman returned from the reception of a Stuart 
King. 



















WINDSOR 



















CHAPTER IV 


WINDSOR 

“The King’s Kinswoman.” 

Next day the country mouse was undisguisedly tired 
after her dissipation, and, may I add, a trifle stiff? 
A reminder, as I scornfully remarked, of my aging 
bones set suddenly a-jigging! The weather was very 
hot, and my cousin and I spent our morning in the 
garden behind the house, where were several fine 
trees, and an exquisite little fountain after the 
fashion of Versailles, in miniature, that Frances had 
had erected in imitation, the tinkle of falling water, 
the scent of the roses, the flutter of green leaves made 
one forget the rumble of the traffic in the streets 
beyond. 

The footmen having carried out a divan for 
my hostess and a day-bed for me, both piled with 
cushions, we reclined in the shade pretending to work, 
and now and then unashamedly dozing — at least, I 
did. I had had little sleep during the night, the 
unwonted, unexpected excitement, the varying emo- 
tions of the past evening, the slight uneasiness still 
lingering in my mind as to what King Charles really 
thought of me (I smiled to myself as I realised that 
I cared not a jot for any one else’s opinion!) all 
conduced to nervousness. Frances Richmond and I 
both lay late, therefore, and, when we did appear, 
still wore our undress — she a beautiful Parisian loose 
gown of finest white muslin curiously embroidered with 

63 


64 


My Two Kings 


black and a black lace scarf over her undressed hair; 
I, mindful of my seniority, with my hair done as usual, 
but in a wrapper of thin black silk, very simple, with 
loose sleeves, revealing my white frilled smock at the 
neck and elbows. 

It was a pleasure to watch the Duchess. “From 
the crown of her head to the sole of her foot she was 
beautiful exceedingly,” save for the slight blemishes 
left by the smallpox, on her fair skin. As she leaned 
back among the cushions, her arms, outstretched and 
thrown back above her head, gleamed whitely through 
the muslin and laces of her robe a la negligence, 
perfect in their rounded outline, her tiny feet and 
slender ankles, crossed upon another cushion on the 
grass, were as exquisitely modelled in their way, and 
the more I looked at her, the more I was reminded 
of her young kinsman at Whitehall. No one was ever 
more handsome than a handsome Stuart ! But she had 
her caprices. On certain days she admitted all and 
sundry who waited upon her; that morning she barred 
her doors to the world and would see no one. “Nay, 
child, don’t argue with me,” she cried, ever so little 
pettish. “They talk and they talk and — and I talk 
and I talk, and I’m tired of it!” She sounded the 
silver bell that stood beside her, a man instantly 
appeared. “Bid the porter deny me,” she ordered, 
flinging herself back on her cushions. “Stay” — she 
looked at me and her smiles returned — “should his 
Grace of Monmouth wait on Madame Stuart, admit 
him to the blue cabinet!” 

“Oh!” I said, below my breath, but she laughed 
outright. 

“Forgive me, why should I not say that? If he 
comes not, what’s lost? If he doth come, you’ll be 
pleased to see him,” and she tossed a lace handkerchief 
into the air and caught it again. 

But he did not come! — and she might have spared 


Windsor 


65 


the order. Something else did, however: a messenger 
from the Court for her, and she had him shown to 
the identical blue closet, while at the same time 
another footman brought out a pile of letters, all for 
her save one, and that for me — a dull, lawyer-like 
document that, on her departure, I turned over dis- 
tastefully. 

It may have been dull to look at, it was not dull 
to read. 

So little had I expected to hear from my man of 
business that I had omitted to tell him I was leaving 
my country lodgings, hence it had been delayed, and 
I should have received it several days sooner. I had 
it early enough! When I had mastered the contents 
I sat with a blanched face and a beating heart, looking 
round me in pure dismay. I will not weary you with 
my affairs, but, briefly, my little income was at an 
end. My son was fighting abroad, the small Hert- 
fordshire property was unlet and in disrepair, and, 
for the moment, yielded nothing whatever to provide 
payment of my tiny jointure. My lawyer, thinking 
me far from town, had written these black facts, 
fancying my presence in London to talk matters 
over was impossible. So here was my fate, the 
cruellest trick Fortune had ever played me, to leave 
me penniless on the threshold of the great gay world 
I already loved and longed to share in . . . and, I 
make no excuse for it, I swore as roundly as Mrs. Nelly 
herself ! 

The concluding words met my returning cousin, who 
looked at me, at the letter on the lawn, and went off 
into a peal of laughter. 

“Stab me!” she said; “these men, how they 
plague us! What has he done to deserve such a 
drubbing? You’ve a pretty long tongue, my dear, 
but it’s useful to keep by you in cases of emergency.” 
Then she really saw my tragic face. “Why, what 


66 


My Two Kings 


is it? Sure, I never meant to tease you — who is it, 
then? I’ll settle him for you.” She picked up the 
letter. “May I read?” She read, and put it down, 
not on the grass this time. “Is that all?” she said 
coolly. 

“All?” I exclaimed. “Yes, it is all, my all, and 
about enough, I think. My dear Duchess, here your 
debutante retires to a convent — if she can find one 
to take her without two pence!” 

“And she a member of the Reformed Religion?” 
asked the Duchess, still lightly, still amused. “I can- 
not say the prospect is gay.” 

“I have done with gaiety,” I said sadly. “Now, 
my kind friend, let me be serious. I’ll go up to my 
room and think things over.” 

“Why, do,” said Frances. “Have a good cry ; 
that’s better than thinking. I’m summoned to 
Court — the Queen has a card-party and desires my 
attendance. Also, since I hear the Court moves to 
Windsor next week and Her Majesty has a mind for 
me to join them, I am to be told their arrangements, 
and make mine.” My heart, w r hich I had thought 
sunk to my shoes before, seemed to drop through the 
ground — at the gay prospect for her only, the splen- 
did doings in the beautiful old Castle. I had heard 
talk of the sham fight to be enacted, the taking of 
Maestricht, in which Monmouth was to win his laurels 
over again, the unwithered laurels of last year’s 
campaign. 

Well, I had stayed long enough in this house, per- 
haps, anyhow — and — the tears were coming as I turned 
to the garden-door. Frances took a swift step after 
me and caught me by my arm. 

“Look at me,” she commanded, and I saw, for 
all her teasing laughter, the kindness in her beautiful 
eyes. “Now go, and cry if you must — but you need 
not! — and any thinking you do will be wasted. Wait 


Windsor 


67 


till I return to-night! Now I must dress. I’ll bid 
them serve your supper in your cabinet. I insist!” 
(Down came the imperious foot.) “More, I’ll order 
out the Imperial Tokay. A glass of that will put 
heart into you — two glasses! and I shall be back, not 
so very late, and I will come to your room and finish 
the bottle!” and she went indoors, laughing as usual, 
and ran up the stairs like a child to a nursery instead 
of a widowed Duchess, calling for her maids to come 
and dress her. 

So I went up to my bedchamber, and though I tried 
not to think, I did not weep much, either. 


A radiant vision stood by my bed, not so very 
early, somewhere about two in the morning ! and 
smiled down upon me as I lifted my head from the 
pillows. “Am I not a rake?” said Frances Rich- 
mond, waving a taper, which scattered twinkling 
light upon her charming figure and, I fear, a shower 
of wax upon the floor. “But there were the affairs 
of the nation to discuss as well as my winnings at 
ombre and basset to count. I won near fifty pound 
(it will buy this room a new carpet!). Think, my 
cousin, now, if you will. We go to Windsor with 
the Court; we, mark you. His Majesty has sent 
you another command!” I could not speak for a 
moment. 

“You? — you?” I tried to ask, and she shook her 
head. 

“There you’re wrong. It was not I, for all I’ll 
tell you the plan was in my head, but Charles was 
before me. He’s been making inquiries about you, 
do you feel frightened? No! Well, I gather he 
knows as much about your affairs as you do your- 
self, for Will Chifiinch has had your snuffy old at- 
torney in cross-examination, and — oh yes, it’s true, 


68 


My Two Kings 


you’re successfully ruined, and all the better for you 1 
The King, my dear, took me aside and told me in a 
very few words, and he finished by saying, ‘Now you 
must be my ambassadress, and I my new cousin’s 
banker. I trust you. Bring her with you to Windsor, 
let her forget her troubles, and we’ll all be happy to- 
gether ; and tell her I preached you a sermon — I hear 
enough of ’em ! — on the text of taking no thought 
for the morrow, and she is to bear that in mind. 
While we are there we’ll find her something’ (you 
will not be offended?” she brought the wavering candle 
closer to my eager face) “ Sve’11 find her something 
to do, or something to be, or some lover to take, even,’ 
he added, rubbing his chin, and glancing at me. But 
that’s his way, he hath too frank a wit for some 
people.” 

“He hath too good a heart for most, as good as 
yours,” I cried in a trembling voice. 

“Ha, my dear, don’t call me good, or I shall 
realise I’m an old woman,” pouted Frances. “Didst 
finish the Tokay? No, then, let us drink to the future, 
my nun who shall not retire to a nunnery if we can 
help it!” 

Not to be wearisome with over much detail, I will 
tell in a few words how my plans were made. I had 
no clothes fit for Court wear, as you know, at any 
rate, no outer garments; but in those days I was 
a great needlewoman, and my laced petticoats and 
frilled smocks were all of my own fashioning, my 
gowns having been, for nearly a year, my widow’s 
weeds. Thus it was decreed that new half-mourning 
dresses I must have. Also a mantua, and a travelling 
hood and cloak of modish cut, while such like details 
as my gloves, laces, shoes, stockings, kerchiefs, all 
the hundred-and-one trifles of a lady of fashion’s 
outfit, must be renewed or purchased afresh. His 


Windsor 


69 


Majesty had sent me word that he would be my 
banker, but that I immediately relegated to the 
limbo of pretty speeches. If he were going to provide 
me with board and lodging in the shape of a visit to 
Windsor, what more could I take from him, even in 
thought? and I certainly was not going to run up 
bills for his paying! I lay awake and thought and 
thought — yes, I did some thinking then — and by 
morning my mind was made up. A few fine feathers 
I must have, also I must provide myself with a maid, 
whom I had hitherto managed without, albeit badly, 
for to a lonely lady in that century a confidential 
woman who would indeed act as a companion on “going 
abroad” was almost a necessity, and would certainly 
have proved one, had I been Frances Richmond’s age 
instead of my own ! 

So I came to a positive conclusion, and when we 
met at breakfast, my cousin and I, I had my resolution 
so firmly fixed that despite her endeavours to stop me 
I insisted on giving her my plans. Would she of her 
great kindness direct me to her jeweller and then her 
dressmaker? for I intended to sell the black pearls 
and fit myself out as finely as might be, if jewel-less, 
during the week still left. 

The family obstinacy fought the family obstinacy! 
I reduced her to silence and respectful attention, 
but if she kept a solemn face, her eyes were sparkling 
like impish diamonds all the while. “My coach is 
ordered to carry me to those very places myself this 
noon,” she remarked. “Come you with me, and 
you will find two heads better than one.” I was 
glad in one way, for I felt her imposing presence 
would add weight to my humbler dealings, but I 
did not understand, and mistrusted, the light in her 
eye. 

On the way there she told me, with her usual swift 
directness, that her mind, too, was made up. 


70 


My Two Kings 


“Now hearken. Master Webben, who bath as 
keen an eye for a pearl as any merchant I know — 
he restrung me His Majesty’s necklace and vowed he 
had seldom seen finer, only this last year — shall put 
a value on those of yours, the loveliest collier at 
Court !” 

I said, a little sadly, that I feared they had paid 
their last visit there, and was met with a mocking 
smile. 

“Now hearken,” she said again. “He shall value 
your black pearls, and I, my friend, will pay you a 
fair price — not the full value, but as a loan, upon 
them. You shall share them with me, let me wear 
them now and then, while the sum I can perfectly 
well advance will cover your expenses. Hush!” as 
I tried to speak. “That is settled. Suppose he says 
£500, I lend you £200 on them, and we are both 
satisfied. In the future, when you have made your 
fortune, you take them back; or if you fall out 
with the Duchess of Monmouth irrevocably” — here a 
demure side-glance — “and are ruined altogether, 
why I shall pay you the rest and give your lovely 
necklace a safe home while I live. Nay,” and she 
was serious again, “I mean it. I will be plain with 
you. My expenses during the past two years have 
been ridiculously slight. My jointure is small for a 
dowager Duchess, I own, but I have always His 
Majesty’s allowance of £700 a year. 1 I can lay my 
hand on several idle hundreds at this moment, and 
I, too, am going to order some fine new garments. 
We’ll go to the mantua-maker’s directly we’ve done 
with Master Webben.” 

She beat me. I went on trying to argue, to force 
her at least to modify her generous scheme, till she 

i 

1 This was reduced to £600 later, but paid her regularly always, 
even after Charles’s death. 


Windsor 


71 


finally turned on me in the funniest little burst of 
feigned fury. 

“I swear I’ll play her .Disgrace of Cleveland in a 
minute, and knock you flat into the gutter, as she 
did Rochester when he tried to kiss her !” she ex- 
claimed. “Poor John! he’s her cousin, and he kisses 
everybody ” 

“And so does she,” I suggested, sotto voce, and we 
both fell into school-girl giggles at the thought of 
my lying on my back in the kennel, as he did while 
her coach went forward splashing him from head to 
foot, his ardour undamped. 

“By Heaven, ’twas bravely done! 

First to attempt the chariot of the Sun, 

And then to fall like Phaeton!” 

— and we were not over our laughter by the time we 
drew up at the little dark shop where dwelt Master 
Webben among his treasures. 

“A fine — a very fine string, your Grace,” he said, 
bowing over the pearls, and looking up at her, his 
jeweller’s glass in his eye. “I would I could name 
a fair price. But times are hard . . .” 

“My good idiot,” said her Grace kindly, “thou 1 
art not offered the pearls, but bidden to name 
their value !” He looked, half disappointed, half 
relieved. 

“£750, your Grace, maybe £800 in a prosperous 
market. Not a penny less than £700.” She nodded 
and bade him provide them with a case, repair for 
her the loop of the pearl pendant belonging to her 
Royal necklace, send an underling — trustable — to her 
house to clean all her diamonds ere the week was over, 
and we were in the coach again in a moment. 

i In the seventeenth century the lower orders were addressed 
as “thee” and “thou.” The Quakers adopted the habit to carry 
out their treatment of all men as equals. 


72 


My Two Kings 


“So, you see!” she cried, “not a penny less than 
£700. I’ll be a Jew, and as mean as a lawyer to 
you, cousin. I proffer but £300 for the share in your 
pearls; what say you? Will that set you up finely 
enough and leave you with a few broad pieces with 
which to play basset at the Queen’s table? Aye, that 
would be mean, indeed, but I am going to give you 
my second sewing-maid. A good wench you will find 
her. I’ve just engaged another Frenchwoman; she’s 
the only English, and it does not answer. She’s not 
too young and not too pretty; you’ll have no worry 
with her at Windsor, and she’ll serve you well. Her 
wages? Ten pounds a year since she is to be at Court 
— oh! you don’t know how the vails fly into the maids’ 
pockets there!” 

“But stop, stop,” I cried, in the last effort to over- 
take circumstances. “I am not going to Court for life, 
my dearest Duchess, but just for a month to Windsor 
in your train, never to Whitehall !” 

“Never to Whitehall?” said Frances, her head on 
one side regarding me as the coach paused at her 
mantua-maker’s lodgings, “I’ll lay, Charlotte, that in 
the future you’ll be more at Whitehall than I! Come, 
is it a wager?” 

It was not; but if it had been, I should have found 
myself even more deeply in debt to her whom men 
call La belle Stuart to this day — as kind as she was 
fair ! 


So I was commanded, so I was arranged for, 
financed, dressed, so I went to Windsor in attendance 
on my Duchess in the wake of the Court, so I saw 
many things and met many people, so I came to be 
fitted, insignificant piece of a puzzle, into the place 
Fate cut for me. What I had to give I gave — not all 
the men or the women of the Restoration Court could 


Windsor 


73 


say as much. It depends on what we have to offer; 
it depends on who asks it of us. I was asked by 
a King of England and his son for the one thing 
I could give them, and I gave it. That is all my 
story. 



LIFE AT COURT 









































































































CHAPTER V 


LIFE AT COURT 

“I gave you the whole of my life, you gave me the half of your 
heart. 

Half of your heart for a year or twain, for a year or three. 

And then She came, who had waited aloof, apart; — 

And what had you left for me? 

All you could give you gave, all that I had you have. 

All of my life while Life endures, if you will it so; 

But never pardon of mine you shall come to crave, 

I give you my leave to go ! 

She gave you the whole of her life, you gave her the whole of your 
heart, 

(So you knew Love’s self for a year or twain, for a year or three,) 
And then Death came, who had waited aloof, apart. 

And what has Life left for me? 

I stand by your bier this summer night in a prison cell. 

And see once more your beautiful face on the pillow, — so, 

Sleep and forget, sleep lonely, sleep long, sleep well, — 

I give you my leave to go.” 

Eleanor Needham to Monmouth. 

M. N. 

At the historic Castle I met nearly all those who were 
connected with my life at Court, or so it seems to 
me as I look back. 

Some died before I left Whitehall for good, of 
course, and some retired voluntarily, some were bidden 
to go, new ambitious men and new beauties arose, 
young folk, among them many of the King’s children, 
grew up, the youthful entourage of the Duke of 
York’s second wife formed a separate Court with its 
own history (and troubles!) at St. James, and came, 
of course, to Whitehall, in the train of their High- 
nesses, when the Duke was not sent far afield by his 
brother’s orders. That autumn he was in England; 

77 


78 


My Two Kings 


he led the defeated side (somewhat sourly) against the 
victorious Duke of Monmouth in the Maestricht sham 
fight, which took place while the Court was at Windsor, 
in a meadow below the Castle, and at which I, among 
thousands of other spectators, was present. Later 
in the year the Duchess’s maids of honour, with the 
Ladies Mary and Anne, gave Crowne’s “Calisto,” 
the famous masque, the Duke of Monmouth leading 
the dancing — that, too, I saw. The Duchess herself, 
and the Duchess of Monmouth, ceased to take an 
active part in the gaieties at Court when the autumn 
came, as her Highness was expecting her first child 
and the Duchess her third. It is to be regretted that 
the unfortunate incident which led to the disgrace 
of the St. James’s maid of honour, Mrs. Needham, 
should have occurred. It was an unlucky finish to the 
Windsor festivities ; the two Duchesses being much 
distressed about it, her Highness being very fond of 
Eleanor Needham, and Anna Monmouth taking the 
matter so much to heart that it made her quite ill, 
and she shut herself up for weeks and went nowhere. 
All this may be gathered from the disjointed frag- 
ment of a letter written by the Lady Mary at the 
time . 1 Unfortunately for my relations with their 
Highnesses of York, I was unwittingly drawn into 
the affair, out of sympathy with the culprit, though I 
need not set down the details here. After the public 
betrayal of the sinners by Mrs. Trevor , 2 Mrs. Needham 
fled incontinently without taking leave, sending word 
“that nobody should ever hear of her more .” 3 I gather 
we were all classed under the head of “nobody,” except 
Monmouth, who certainly heard a great deal! — echoes 

1 In the possession of Lord Bathurst, published in Princess and 
Queen , by Mary F. Sanders. 

2 Horace Walpole. 

3 Vide the Lady Mary, in an unpublished letter in the possession 
of Lord Bathurst. 


Life at Court 


79 


of the way in which his wife dealt with him came faintly 
back to us. The King, I am sorry to say, laughed 
for an hour on end when he was first told the story! 
but he had his work cut out for him later: he had 
to defend and appease Anna, and be extremely severe 
with his son, he had to soothe the young Duchess 
of York, and allay the natural irritation of the 
Duke ! 

History does not relate, but I can, the fact that 
on the Court’s return from Windsor, Charles had a 
serious but quite fruitless talk with Monmouth. 
Eleanor Needham’s oblivion was ordered to be only 
temporary, and she was back in attendance the follow- 
ing year, forgiven by Mary of Modena, only to retire 
for good before long. This poor foolish girl was 
never more than an acquaintance of mine, but in 
after life I saw much of her handsome eldest son 
by Monmouth, Major-General James Crofts, and her 
lovely daughter Henrietta Duchess of Bolton was also 
my friend and correspondent, though we seldom met. 
In those two beautiful young people I was reminded 
more of their father than by any of his legitimate 
children. 


I seem to be straying into side issues, but the fact 
is I am not going to set down here a complete account 
of my month at Windsor. 

First of all, let me say that I played a very small 
part, sometimes not being bidden to attend more than 
once or twice in a week. I had no official status 
whatever; I was not lodged in the Palace, but in one 
of the smaller of the many houses of varying size in 
the town, where those who followed the Court from 
inclination or duty were put up. A quiet, modest, 
but comfortable lodging, sufficient for me and my 
maid was provided (and conveniently close). The 


80 


My Two Kings 


Duchess of Richmond was in the Castle itself, so we 
met much less frequently. The Duke of Monmouth 
owned a fine house, not a stone’s throw from me, though 
he was there en gar£on, Anna being out of health and 
remaining in town. The Yorks were in the Castle, 
of course, and some of their suite, but a couple of 
the Duchess’s ladies (not Mrs. Needham) were lodged 
in the same house as I, and to them I was privately 
bidden to play duenna as much as possible — somewhat 
to my alarm ! — directly I arrived. What possible 
authority could I have, I wondered? 

But I was put to no trouble; they were both quiet, 
well-behaved girls, one being Elizabeth, elder of the 
two daughters of the Lady Mary’s governess, Lady 
Frances Villiers, a damsel of much wit, whose con- 
versation I always admired, but whose looks were 
spoiled for the general public by a slight cast in one 
eye (“the reverse of a squint,” and the look turned 
outward, not inward), still in her teens, indeed, not 
more than seventeen or so I fancy, but I never knew 
her exact age; and the other a slender slip of a thing, 
pale, with lovely ash-blonde hair with strands and 
lights of auburn in it, darker eyes, lashes, and brows, 
a silent creature, hard to get to know, watchful — I 
soon found out whom she watched — aged, then, some 
eighteen summers, Henrietta, my Lady Wentworth 
of Nettlestead, new to her duties with Mary of 
Modena. 

Lady Frances would have had both under her care, 
but the younger of her daughters, Anne, never strong, 
was then ill, and she had stayed with her in London. 
These two Yilliers sisters were to become within a 
few short years, respectively William of Orange’s 
mistress and the wife of his bosom friend William 
Bentinck — afterwards the King of England and the 
Duke of Portland! 

Of the subsequent history of Henrietta Wentworth 


Life at Court 81 

the world is aware. But the time was not yet for any 
of these things. 

I admit that Elizabeth Villiers attracted me most 
at first, chiefly because of her obvious cleverness, and, 
though she cared little for the society of her own 
sex, she preferred older women, and was considerably 
more expansive in her manner to me that she was 
to her somewhat shy and certainly proud young 
companion, upon whom I could make but little im- 
pression. I studied both girls, and predicted the 
future of a brilliant woman for Mrs. Villiers — to hear 
her talk to a clever man was worth sitting silent 
by the hour, listening! Lady Wentworth’s Royalist 
family history I knew something of, and their fight- 
ing record — her splendid Cavalier grandfather, old 
Lord Cleveland; his son, who pre-deceased him, Lord 
Wentworth, whose portrait I had seen, a sad-faced 
man with long eyes and a self-contained look, whom 
his daughter somewhat resembled except in colour- 
ing; her incomprehensible mother, whom the Court 
laughed at (much as it had done at Lady Wemyss, 
Anna’s mother), an extraordinary person, Dutch-born 
though of British parentage, passionate, inordinately 
ambitious, a vulgarian and a snob. And yet Henri- 
etta was her only daughter, utterly unlike her, but 
with a goal (for some little while I could not guess 
what), evidently kept always before her eyes. A 
mysterious personality, hers, which no advances of mine 
could at first thaw. 

And advances were my order of the day then ! 
Before I had got as far as Windsor I had realised 
that if I meant to play any part in Court life, I must 
make up my mind with whom to be friends — at least 
outwardly; that I must pay the attention everybody 
else did to Louise de Querouaille, laugh with Mrs. 
Gwyn, induce their Royal Highnesses to accept me, 
be on familiar terms with Lady Sunderland, Lady 


82 


My Two Kings 


Frances Villiers, Lady Arlington, Lady Falmouth, 
Lady Suffolk, Lady Norwich, 1 the Duchess of Buck- 
ingham — I jot down a few names as they occur to 
me. I must win the poor neglected Queen’s heart if I 
could. I must, at the same time, associate as required 
with Catherine Sedley, Moll Kirke, fit myself for the 
virtuous airs of Mrs. Blagge, prepare for the patron- 
age of Lady Hamilton (once Frances Jennings, Sarah’s 
sister — and of Sarah herself, that forward chit!) 
smilingly view the wild ways of Lady Mary Mordaunt 
and Lady Elizabeth Felton, ingratiate myself with 
that powerful old maid Katherine Crofts, sister of 
Lord Crofts, Monmouth’s guardian in youth, as she 
herself had been governess, who had her rooms at 
Whitehall and was much in the King’s confi- 
dence. 

But this is a list that could be continued for ever; 
I can merely add that I was fortunate in coming into 
public life a year or two after the famous Duchess 
of Cleveland had been obliged to give up her post 
of lady of the Bedchamber to the poor little Queen. 
She made brilliant appearances still with some fre- 
quency, but at least we were not living under the same 
roof ! 

I was never on intimate terms with her successor 
the Duchess of Portsmouth, but she was an altogether 
different type of woman: her manners w^ere in ac- 
cordance with her birth, which Barbara Castlemaine’s 
most certainly were not! and we lived, outwardly, 
in peace and some sort of friendship. That Charles 
loved her after a fashion, from the time of her coming 
to Whitehall for the second time, after “Madame’s” 
death, in the early seventies, till he himself died in 
1685, there is no doubt whatever. That she had to 
submit to extraordinary humiliations at the hands of 


1 The Scottish ex-actress. 


Life at Court 


83 


Mrs. Nelly is also sure, for I myself was witness to 
several of the scenes alluded to in History, when the 
great lady, secure in her birth, breeding, title, en- 
during good looks, was literally routed horse and foot 
by the quick wit — which, I confess, was unspeakably 
funny but recognised no bounds whatever — of the 
ci-devant actress and orange-girl. Sometimes one 
did not know which way to look! partly from the 
devastating plainness of the latter’s speech, partly from 
the fact that we at Court, good or bad, gentle or 
simple, were most of us entirely on Nelly’s side in our 
inmost hearts. 

Only once did I differ from her, and then she showed 
a wonderful restraint and good taste which made me 
feel warmly towards her ever after. As History 
tells, she threw Monmouth’s birth in his face once 
in public, and he simply left the room without saying 
anything further. I was present, I waited till the 
general conversation had taken another turn, and 
then went and sat down quietly by Mrs. Gwyn, who 
received me with an even more mischievous glance 
than the Duchess of Richmond was wont to employ 
when quizzing me. She made room for me on the 
couch where she sat and met my attack before it was 
made. 

“Ah, Mistress Stuart, you come to scold me, I see 
it in your eye! You are going to say ’tis a poor game 
to remind a man his mother was a Lucy Walter 1 ; 
his sons may remind mine that theirs was just Nelly. 
S’truth, you’re right.” 

I burst out laughing, for I had not said a word! 
“Well,” I retorted, “I did but think she is dead, 
poor woman, and may be left in peace. You aspersed 

i “While I — pest on it, I am well enough, 

My father was no King; but then my mother 
Was not a Lucy Walter.” 

( Monmouth , an anonymous drama.) 


84 


My Two Kings 


her birth, Mrs. Gwyn, and Mrs. Walter had a pedigree 
as long as — as your tongue !” 

Here she threw up her curly head in exact 
imitation of Monmouth, crinkled up her blue eyes, 
and fell back upon the cushions in such peals of 
merriment that our nearer neighbours, accustomed as 
they were to her vagaries, turned to look at her and 
me. 

“I’ve routed his Grace !” she cried, “and now 
Madame Stuart hath defeated me, right, left and centre ; 
I admit it. Oh, Madame,” and her voice dropped and 
she bent confidentially nearer me, “you’re his good 
friend, and after all, so am I. And I deserved your 
setting-down. I swear I wish her Grace of Ports- 
mouth had the long tongue you possess — and accuse me 
of! We could get more fun out of our bouts then, 
zounds, but we could indeed ! But my lord Duke called 
me ‘ill-bred,’ remember.” 

“Why,” I returned, “did he do that?” 

“Because,” she retorted, bubbling over afresh, 
“ Because I am!” 

Here His Majesty crossed the room and leant over 
the back of the couch, Nelly and I rising at once. 

“Nay, fair ladies, sit you down again, but let me 
share the jest — well, if those fine petticoats can be 
compressed to make room for an eavesdropper?” and 
he came round and seated himself between us, drawing 
both her and me down again, one on each side of him. 
“Now, Nelly, out with it.” 

“Lud, Sire,” remarked Mrs. Ellen, glancing past 
him at me, whereat, of course, he turned to look at 
me too, “Lud, Sire, Madame Stuart was but telling me 
how ill-mannered I am.” 

“For shame,” I cried. “What a fib!” 

“And that I am a liar, Sire,” she added impishly. 

“You know ’twas not I who said it, ’twas you your- 
self,” I vowed. 


Life at Court 


85 


“Aye, that’s a fact,” remarked Nelly serenely. “So 
I did. Thus you see it is the truth I tell as a rule. 
Madame Stuart came to me with a lecture ready pre- 
pared; I was too quick for her, and told her what it 
was before she could get it out.” 

“I’ll wager you did,” said Charles. “Nobody ever 
gets a chance of speaking once you begin.” 

“That,” said Nelly, folding her pretty white hands 
meekly, “is a pity, because I have schooled myself 
so long not to interrupt the King, nor to begin a 
conversation, nor to hazard a remark should he be 
silent, nor to call my soul my own, should he say it 
was his !” 

Now this was a two-edged jest. We all laughed, but 
I felt its sharpness. She did not care, Charles did not 
care, but I did — I cared for both their sakes. But 
I was new to Court then. 


There was another scene a few days later of which 
I have full remembrance — I know not quite how it 
came about, but I was spending a happy hour in one 
of the more distant and least frequented State rooms 
examining a easeful of miniatures. I had been 
attracted by one of the Duke of York, with the 
haunting sadness of expression his earlier portraits 
show, especially the one I consider the best of all, 
Sir Peter Lely’s at St. James’s Palace, and then I 
had passed on to Master Cooper’s “limning in little” 
of His Majesty, and dismissed it in disgust , 1 only to 
fall entranced beneath the spell of the same artist’s 
unfinished study of his Grace of Monmouth as a 
little boy. I recollect drawing in my breath as I 
looked, and my eyes suddenly and foolishly filling with 
tears. 

i The really fine Samuel Cooper of Charles is at Goodwood, and 
forms the frontispiece to this book; the Windsor one I cannot bear. 


86 


My Two Kings 


There sounded a footstep, a curtain parted and fell 
to again, and Monmouth himself entered the room 
almost at my side, and was by me before I could lay 
the frame down, glancing with amusement first at what 
I held and then at me — amusement giving way to a 
dawning astonishment as my silly tears overflowed and 
ran down my cheeks. 

“Madame!” he said, on a little remonstrating note, 
“tears?” 

I was fairly caught, and I was not going to plunge 
myself into further folly by excuses. 

“Yes, sir,” I answered, “tears for the past, I think.” 

My sudden acquaintanceship — friendship — with 
Monmouth had proved slightly disappointing, but not 
surprisingly so to me. That gay dance at Whitehall 
seemed to have begun and ended our comradeship — 
we had not met again before our mutual transference 
to Windsor. I had seen him from my windows pass 
in and out of his fine house, surrounded by his servants, 
attended by gilt calash and finely decorated sedan 
chair, accompanied by friends or gentlemen-in-waiting. 
I had encountered him in the Castle, had had my hand 
kissed with a laughing word or two, and he had come 
— and gone — a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, 
pursuing some beckoning hand, flying after some sport 
or other, entangling himself in some mischief, full of 
the preparations for the mimic siege, riding, driving, 
dancing, laughing. “The whirling years!” How fast 
they went, when one looks back at them from days that 
seem to stand still! 

He had half a dozen “love” affairs on hand, he was 
Captain of the Guard and had many duties that 
History always forgets , 1 he was the King’s beloved 

i People ignore the fact that he was once Commander-in-Chief 
(Captain-General), and a study of his military correspondence 
preserved in the Record Office shows how seriously he took his 
duties, and how thoughtful he was for his men. There were, 
undoubtedly, two Monmouths. 


Life at Court 


87 


son, and there was hardly a man but paid court to 
him, hardly a woman not waiting for him to lift a 
finger. And when he came into the Room of the 
Miniatures I doubt not that he was in search of some 
one — certainly not of me! Yet, having found me, he 
stayed. 

“Madame,” he said again and stopped, taking the 
portrait from my hands, and looking down at it as 
if it were the likeness of a stranger, “do not think 
me curious, but why weep over this youngster?” 
We both smiled then, if my smile were rather tremu- 
lous. 

“I was not thinking of you,” I replied. “May I 
speak the truth, and you will not be hurt? I was 
thinking how I could have borne to part with you if 
you had been my son and they had taken you from 
me.” 

For a moment I feared I had gone too far. He 
looked neither at me nor the miniature, but out of 
the window, over green meadows intersected by a wind- 
ing blue ribbon of river, and said slowly, “I do not 
think my mother did bear it. I know so little, His 
Majesty will never speak of her. You — you remem- 
bered that old dance, and of course you understood 
that she taught the King and me — when I was no older, 
nay, when I was much younger than I was then.” 
(He tapped the glass of the Cooper portrait.) “She 
had that painted when she and I were last in London 
together, and sent it to the King. After that . . . 
the King sent for me.” He paused and looked out of 
the window again. 

The soft shallow hazel eyes, the eyes of some young 
god of the mountains and woods that lives for the 
joy of life and knows nothing of the possession of 
heart or soul, clouded for an instant. Then he turned 
to me. 

“The past is the past,” and his gay smile came 


88 


My Two Kings 


back. “She is at rest wherever she is” — here was 
a slight shrug not quite as careless as it looked — “and 
I, Madame, there is nothing to shed tears for now 
concerning me!” 

He laughed, and looked to see me laugh too. So 
he saw me laugh (I had learnt the unwritten law, “No 
long faces at Court”) and I said as gaily as he, “No, 
my lord Duke, but remember I was not weeping over 
the present when you caught me!” 

“A pest upon your lords and dukes !” he said, 
with a sudden very swift shake of his head sideways 
— another trick I was to know. “You’re mighty 

stiff with me, my cousin, and ” he paused and 

regarded me with a mimic frown — “you have been 
listening to tales of my sins? Now sit you there, 
I keep you standing,” and I was drawn to the deep 
seat of the window. “Sit you there, and I’ll sit me 
here” — he took the opposite corner — “ and I’ll prove 
to you I’m not so black as our fair Duchess Frances 
has painted me, nor Nelly, eh? nor even His Majesty. 
But have you” — he lowered his voice dramatically — 
“have you conversed with my good uncle of York? 
For he . . . !” 

“Sir,” I said, trying not to smile, “indeed I have, 
but not of you. His Highness was kind enough to 
ask my Stuart parentage and that of my late husband, 
and I told him.” 

“And?” echoed Monmouth, alert for a jest. 

“And?” I said. “Why, that was all, sir. I do not 
think his Highness had anything more to say.” 

Monmouth burst into a roar. “I warrant he had 
not !” he cried. “Except that I marvel he did not ask 
you his questions all over again ! That is a clever plan 
to make a little conversation go a long way.” 

“Is it?” I asked, as if feeling for knowledge. “Yet 
even then it does not go far, surely?” Monmouth 
smiled at me, his whole face gay and entirely clear of 


Life at Court 


89 


all sad memories, his whole bearing full of joyous, in- 
consequent, careless youth. 

“No, I do not say much as a rule ; I leave it to people 
like His Majesty to talk — or my wife! — or — I think, 
cousin, I shall leave it to you, or that monstrous plain 
girl with ever so bright a wit at your lodgings, Mrs. 
Villiers. Egad, she’s amusing. She knows more of 
war than many men. She has told me what I never 
knew myself about the Maestricht fight!” 

“She’s admirably clever,” I returned, “but her com- 
panion has begun to interest me more; that other girl 
has a great fascination for me.” 

“My lady Wentworth,” said Monmouth carelessly. 
“I have never noticed her.” 

He leant his beautiful cheek, ruddy and brown, 
against the brown of the window-frame, he was in 
riding-dress, a buff coat, a shortened peruke, long 
boots of soft leather, his felt hat cast carelessly on 
a gilt settee near by. He pursed up his lips idly and 
•whistled a few bars of our Dutch dance. “And so 
your name is Stuart, and has always been? mine is 
Scott — be damned to it !” The first part of this 
sentence was in a pleasant conversational tone, the 
second very serious, the third came with a rush, and 
was so inexpressibly funny that I buried my face in 
my hands and rocked a little back and forth. “Ah, 
now you laugh at me, like my father,” he said, with 
a pretended pout — he might have been the boy of the 
miniature. 

“No, never at you, always with you,” I replied. 
“So you must laugh too.” 

“Yes, I will do that,” he responded. “Ask me any- 
thing, my merry lady, in the way of mirth , 1 and you 
will find me ready, I’ll warrant you.” 

i “Melancholy was never my greatest fault” (Monmouth to 
Spence). 


90 


My Two Kings 


“Not tears?” I asked, half waywardly, thinking of 
how he had lately caught me. 

“Not tears, no — and over a portrait of myself, too! 
I’ll give you more to cry over than that before I have 
done with you.” 

He was on his feet, pretending to frown, pretending 
to threaten. I leaned sideways against my half of the 
casement and laughed up at him. 

“No doubt you will, sir!” I said. 


> 


MEN AND WOMEN 




















. 















CHAPTER VI 


MEN AND WOMEN 

“Our Lady of Laughter, invoked in no psalter, 

Praise be to thee, then, from a hag-ridden age!” 

Swinburne’s Nell Gwyn. 

,<■ ) 

Other glimpses of those past days remain with me, 
for the most part trivial incidents no historian save 
Pepys, who wrote, like me, for his private satisfaction ! 
would have dreamt of recording. 

Yet because I try to recollect what happened 
not to make a book of what I write, I append these 
scattered, disjointed records, simply for the reason 
that I recall that they took place. Monmouth’s fine 
house, as I have said, was not far from mine, nor 
was Mrs. Ellen’s lodging; the Duchess of Portsmouth 
was established in the Castle. One day, however, 
the weather, which had been delightful, fine, dry, and 
warm, broke in heavy showers, and the road was a 
running torrent of mud. I was used to the country; 
I was free that day, and had been amusing myself 
by wandering in company with a gentleman, whose 
acquaintance I had lately made, among the quaint old 
shops of the town. 

Mr. Sidney was a man who made an hour pass 
pleasantly. I took him as I found him, and the 
enjoyable acquaintanceship formed at Windsor en- 
dured till after my exile in Holland, where he was 
too much William’s friend, as all the world knows. 
Uncle to my lord Sunderland, but only a year older, 
the reputed lover of Madame de Sunderland, and 

93 


94 


My Two Kings 


certainly affiche with several other lovely ladies, 
Henry Sidney, afterwards Lord Romney, was then 
an ally of mine, and always a delightful companion. 
Extremely good looking, without many brains, he was 
yet a charming conversationalist. I never trusted 
him out of my sight; I misliked the Sidney tepidity 
where loyalty was concerned — or worse, to wit, 
Colonel Algernon’s republicanism ! — but Henry was 
no Algernon, nor Robert, nor that ineffective head 
of the family, Leicester; he had some of the charm 
and none of the spite of his very much older sister 
“Sacharissa” ; and when I add that his aunt was the 
fair and notorious Lucy Percy, Lady Carlisle, in the 
days of King Charles the Martyr, I have introduced 
him fully ! 

He and I, having a taste in common for curios, were 
indulging it that afternoon in wandering among the 
enticing shops. I had to content myself with looking, 
but he was amusingly extravagant, and, indeed, I at 
last left him within one, protesting I should succumb 
too and be ruined, or be shut up with him alone at 
the closing of the shop at night if he dallied longer. 
“That being the case, sir, we had better part friends!” 
I had added jestingly. (If it is found that my con- 
versation becomes a trifle free for modern ideas, let 
it be recalled that I was now a member of the Restora- 
tion Court, and such a mode of speech was universal.) 
We had parted friends, therefore! exchanging our 
habitual quips, the shopman smiling and bowing at 
intervals, Harry Sidney’s golden curls, bright grey 
eyes, and features clear-cut as a cameo, shown up 
against the darkness of the background. 

“Ha, Madame, you leave me to my fate! Will you 
visit me in a debtor’s prison? Give me at least that 
hope,” — and I had gone on my way through the gleam- 
ing wet streets, with the finish of a smile on my lips 
slowly dying out. 


Men and Women 


95 


Ere I could reach my door, by came two magnificent 
coaches. One contained the Duchess of Portsmouth 
and a couple of gentlemen, her impassive beauty visible 
through the new-fangled glass windows — indeed, her 
equipage seemed nearly all glass and gilding — but she 
either never noticed me on my humble way, simply clad 
in a grey lawn gown and a light-weight grey “atlas” 
hood, or else she did not think it worth her while to 
recognise me. The gay coach wheels, splashing over 
the muddy stones, sent a shower of mire over my feet, 
to my natural annoyance; I drew farther back as the 
next coach came by. In it was one figure alone — 
petite, fair, a study of picturesque untidiness and im- 
pudent gaiety — Mrs. Nell ! 

Again a shower of mud fell over me, like a spray, 
soaking my modest but fresh summer dress. This 
time, however, I was not passed unseen, the curly 
head was thrust from the window, the clear gamine 
voice cried an order to the manservants, prefaced, I 
fear, by an oath I had heard behind my mask at the 
Playhouse ! 

“Madame Stuart, pig that I am to turn your 
pathway into a sty! I vow Fve ruined your pretty 
gown; devil take my louts, they think they can splash 
in the gutter as if they still played in it — like me!” 
and Nelly was on the step of the coach and out upon 
the be-mired cobbles, in white silk shoes and violet 
velvet skirts, if you please, all anyhow in the mud! — 
brushing down my sober grey draperies with a wisp of 
lace handkerchief. 

“Rot the fools, you’re a walking mud-pie! Here, 
in with you, and I’ll whirl you home in no time. I 
will not be responsible for your getting any dirtier!” 
and then she suddenly stopped, and looked at me with 
a hesitation quite frank and quite loveable. “That 
is, Madame, if you will do me the honour to share my 
coach and be seen with me in it?” 


96 


My Two Kings 


What was she not before she became Charles’s 
mistress, but was she anything afterwards but his 
faithful lover? Nothing, I will stake my soul. It 
was he who was unfaithful to her: “as all the world 
knew, she made but a drawn game of it with the 
Frenchwoman”; she was “the indiscreetest and wildest 
creature that ever was in a Court” ; but she was better 
than most of us. As I already knew, she had a heart 
of gold, where many had no hearts at all, she was 
the most natural, genuine, true soul I ever came in 
contact with. 

“Mrs. Gwyn,” I answered, “this mud has kindly 
blotted out that cast on me by her Grace of Ports- 
mouth just now, and I’m grateful! As for your coach, 
forsooth, do you think that what is good enough for 
His Majesty to ride in will not do for me?” and I 
climbed the high steps. She followed. 

“That being so, Madame Stuart,” she said, quite 
serious still, “will you go a step farther down into the 
gutter, and return with me to my house for a while? 
It would please me very much — and — and you could 
not be more soiled by such contact than you are al- 
ready !” And here we both smiled. 

“Nay, but it’s good of you,” she insisted. “You 
receive the likes of me to please Charles when Charles 
is by — eh, you have to! But you could have gone 
on to-day with your head in the air, regardless of 
my mud and my oaths just now — do I not know it? 
I shall not harm you, Madame. I know your reputa- 
tion (as, la! you know mine!) and oddsbody, it will 
survive an hour in my company. And I’ll never have 
it said of me that I served a lady such a filthy trick — 
’tis a pretty lawn truly, French? — yes, and you shall 
at least be returned to your lodging clean.” 

So I spent the rest of that afternoon with the 
orange-girl, while my dress was being laundered afresh, 
wrapped in one of her beautiful undress gowns of 


Men and Women 


97 


sky-blue muslin veiled in lace, most unbefitting my 
“third mourning,” my demure hood laid aside, sip- 
pinng ratafia and nibbling sweet cakes. I had not 
been there half an hour when in came Harry Sidney ! 1 
and I really do not know which of us laughed most, 
my hostess or I, at his start of surprise, admirably 
covered at once, or he himself when he saw he was 
detected. 

“I left you, sir,” I said, “on the verge of ruin.” 

“You find Madame,” put in Nelly, “over the verge! 
I have soused her in muck from head to heels, and 

now she has sunk so far into the slough ” Here 

I interrupted: “Not of Despond, at all events!” and 
we all three proved the truth of that statement. We 
were laughing and talking at once like foolish children, 
when the door opened and in came the King, absolutely 
alone, unannounced, in a simple riding dress, with a 
spaniel under his arm. 

“Why,” he said, looking round at each one of us, 
“at least I do not find you all weeping in my 
absence, or fighting because I am not here to keep 
order; but rather in the best of spirits, thinking me 
well out of the way.” He walked over and stood 
with his back to the fireplace. “Well, my ladies, well, 
Harry, my friend! Are you the leading rattlepate, 
or is it Nell? — it generally is! — or can I believe that 
Madame Stuart” — the dark eyes beamed ever so kindly 
on me — “is the ringleader? Gad! Frances said she 
wanted cheering, but that she would cheer us all in 
return in time.” 

“How can I but be gay when you’re all so kind to 
me?” I asked; under the surface of my light-hearted 
manner I was deeply touched. 

“Ah!” cried Nell, quick as lighting, “but we are 


i After I had written this, I found he was one of the four 
executors of Nell Gwyn’s will. 


98 


My Two Kings 


always kind to those who are kind to us,” and she 
looked archly at the two men. Charles smiled benig- 
nantly down upon her; she was always to him the pet 
plaything, he was certain of good spirits and good 
company with her; but there was more than that to 
it, for he knew well she was as true as steel all through, 
and God knows he found little enough of that truth 
in the company about him. 

Mr. Sidney cocked a handsome, strongly marked 
eyebrow, and said, with a heavy sigh, “Yes, yes, 
we’re always kind, but people are not always kind to 
us. Now Mrs. Gwyn is cold as ice to her humble 
servant,” (“Why, Harry, that’s good for you and bet- 
ter hearing for me,” sotto voce from His Majesty!) 
“and Madame Stuart abandoned me to the claws of 
a rascally merchant.” 

“You abandoned me to be bound to the chariot- 
wheels of Mrs. Gwyn,” I exclaimed, “a less cruel 
fate.” 

“No,” amended Nelly, twinkling at Charles, “I did 
not follow in her Grace of Portsmouth’s road.” 

“T’other way about, for sure,” said Harry Sidney 
to me behind his hand. So, after the manner of our 
time, did we skim thin ice that summer’s day. 

The rain had cleared away, the glorious sun poured 
into the brilliantly furnished, untidy room. Mrs. 
Ellen’s magnificent hat, smothered with a profusion of 
ostrich feathers, was cast carelessly on a couch, an 
exquisite embroidered scarf that she had worn over 
another, a chair held a child’s toy. 

“Why, Sire, won’t you sit?” she asked the King 
as he stood still with his back to the vacant fireplace 
regarding us. “That is, if one can find you a seat; 
it doesn’t seem easy, does it?” 

I swept back the folds of my flowing muslins and 
laces, and boldly made room on my sofa. Without 
more ado he took his place beside me. Nelly was 


Men and Women 


99 


scolding Mr. Sidney for his somewhat ungentle re- 
moval of her finery to a table, and the two were laugh- 
ing over the mud-stain discovered where the end of 
her scarf had trailed. I seized the opportunity and 
leant towards the King. How clearly I see him now. 
The room had windows both at front and back, run- 
ning the depth of the house; the evening sun flooded 
in and struck behind us, outlining with brilliant gold 
his great black peruke and the thin line of his olive 
cheek, sending a ray through the iris of the eye next 
me, showing the deep brown, as of darkest peat-water 
- — those cynical, sad, kind, clever eyes of which I came 
to know every change of expression. 

“All so kind, Sire,” I repeated, as if we had never 
dropped the subject, “and I never thank any one, 
it seems to me, but Frances, and she will not let 
me.” 

“But I,” said Charles, with the ghost of a glance 
across the room at Mrs. Gwyn, “thank you. Hush,” 
as I tried to speak, “you must let me do that.” 

“You, Sire,” I replied with a little break in my 
voice, “must never thank me for anything at all. I 
owe you too much ever to be able to repay.” 

“So,” he said, and his voice was solemn, but his 
eyes danced as they met my own, “So this is a sort 
of repayment?” 

“I vow it is not!” I cried hotly. “When I try, if 
ever I get the chance of repaying you, it will not be 
by accepting kindness from one . . .” 

“From one who is too kind to me, eh?” asked Charles 
with a little sigh. “Nay, you were not going to say 
that, I know. But let that be. Thank me when you 
have something to thank me for.” 

“Well, then, this past three weeks, for example!” 
I exclaimed gaily. “How many of your faithful sub- 
jects would not cut off their right hands for a month 
with the Court at Windsor? And only because ” 


100 


My Two Kings 


“Because you are a Stuart,” said His Majesty, 
looking at me from under his heavy brows. “Ah, 
believe me, I know that those who bear that name 
have much owing to them — I should know, should 
I not? And since I do ( when I remember, you 
notice), I occasionally try to make reparation to those 
who are the King’s cousins for their sins !” My 
foolish tears, always far too near the surface, rushed 
into my eyes. “Why, it’s a crying matter, is it?” 
said Charles. “This is serious. First James makes 
you weep — oh, I heard of your tears over his minia- 
ture; James tells me more than you think! — and 
now ” 

At that moment came the beating of little hands 
on the door — half-closed, it flew open, and into the 
room ran a beautiful little boy looking at least five 
or six years, though I knew he was but a little over 
four, and precipitated himself upon Nelly’s violet velvet 
lap. She bent over his dark curls, her own fair locks 
forming a charming contrast. 

“Charles, we’ve forgotten our manners!” she cried, 
raising him and turning him right round towards 
the sofa where His Majesty and I sat. The small 
boy laid a hand on his heart, executed so deep a bow 
that his long curls tumbled over the top of his head 
and touched the floor, and then, a trifle red in the 
face, came forward and kissed our hands most 
charmingly. He looked up at me and then at the 
King. 

“Dis is de lady,” he said with a pretty lisp, “whose 
down is in de titchen bein’ wossed. I’ve been helpin’.” 

“We can’t keep away from the petticoats.” Another 
of Charles’s sotto voce comments passed unheeded for 
once, as I was gazing into the beautiful brown upturned 
eyes. 

“Oh !” I said ; and, “Oh, the Cooper miniature !” 

Across the room, Henry Sidney’s easy, smiling 


Men and Women 


101 


glance caught mine, and changed ever so little as 
he looked from the boy’s face to me, and then, swift 
, as thought, to the King and away again. This was 
Nelly’s eldest son, then, but it might have been 
Monmouth as Samuel Cooper saw him twenty years 
before; and Harry Sidney was brother to the man 
who, the world whispered, was Monmouth’s father! 
I found myself involuntarily throwing apart my 
hands with a small quick gesture, at once restrained, 
induced by the mental resolve to “give it up.” Truly 
there were riddles in this great world beyond my 
reading ! 

“Madame’s down is nearly dri-ed ? ” volunteered the 
little voice, and I rose somewhat hastily, picking up 
his small person and bestowing him upon my seat, 
dropping for one moment on my knees on the floor 
before him, and holding up my face for a kiss. The 
King sat and smiled at us both. 

“Charles,” he said, “when you’re my age fair ladies 
won’t pick you up and then proffer you kisses, I’m 
afraid. Give her a very nice one!” and a sound, fat, 
somewhat damp smack saluted my cheek. 

“Madame’s face is wet,” remarked the smaller 
Charles, (my idiotic tears!) but the King said in- 
stantly, “You must help dry it; you helped dry her 
gown,” and put into the little plump hand a beautiful 
laced kerchief, with which the boy seriously and 
methodically dabbed first one cheek of mine and then 
the other. 

“It doesn’t come off — no red!” he remarked, looking 
at the kerchief, and then at all four of us as we 
simultaneously burst out laughing ! 

“No, no,” added His Majesty. “Madame Stuart 
can’t wear red till she begins to give over weeping 
about our sins, Charles.” 

“Sins?” said the drier of my gown and my tears, 
“what is sins?” 


102 


My Two Kings 


“I wonder?” echoed the King, still laughing. 

“The things other people tell us not to do, and then 
do themselves,” hazarded Nell, turning with me as I 
made for the door with, “May I be excused? I must 
get into my rightful drab attire again. I have taken 
up too much of everybody’s time.” 

“That was made for slaves,” said my Sovereign, 
nodding at me as we went to the door. “It has 
nothing to do with slave-drivers like me, so ad- 
dress your apologies elsewhere, as your thanks, my 
cousin.” 

“Have you been thanking him?” whispered Mrs. 
Gwyn, catching up her violet velvet skirts to ascend 
the stairs to her room, where I had shed my draggled 
plumage and now was to don it refreshed. “He 
won’t like it, or at least he’ll sav he don’t ; but all the 
world asks favours of him and throws him back no 
gratitude” — “oh, none! But if you’re going to be 
grateful, Madame, why” — she paused, and looked at me 
with a curious expression, still smiling, but the ex- 
pression was there behind the smile — “why, I’m old- 
fashioned, and I thank him too. He took me out of 
the gutter.” 

“Just as you did me,” I smiled. 

“Ah, but with a difference. Well, that must be; 
you’re a lady, and he’s only a king.” 

The sinking sun gilt her curly head as she stood 
by the toilette table — my grey lawn, clean, newly ironed, 
was laid out on the beautiful great silver-adorned bed. 
I turned from it to her at that last sentence, and she 
held up a little white hand at me as she saw my face. 
“Oh, you do not take me aright; you do not under- 
stand, and I thought you did. Gadzooks, but how 
should you?” 

“But how should I not?” I cried with a tiny 
stamp of my foot. “It is just because I do under- 
stand, cannot you see? What if I’m a lady, does 


Men and Women 


103 


that count for much? I’m a Stuart, and the King’s 
a Stuart — let’s have done with ladies and gentle- 
men !” 

“We’ll have done with fine ones,” said Nell; “but 
he’s a gentleman and you’re a lady, and I’m of the 
mud in the kennel — there’s the truth.” 

“Nelly,” I said, and she glanced up swiftly at my 
face and let her eyes fall again, “the King and I 
are in the mud with you. Don’t let us bandy words. 
We’re all human beings, and some of us are bad and 
some of us are good, and History will make a fine 
mess of us when it comes to write us down. Why, 
it will say that you were for ever laughing, and 
you’re very solemn now, and that the King was always 
ungrateful, whereas Heaven above knows, how kind 
he is ; and History will say you were bad, and the 
King was bad, and I say to you now that History 
will never know! For it’s only those who know the 
King will be able to tell posterity what sort of man 
he Was, and it’s only those who love the King who 
know him !” 

“And we who love him,” replied Nell, “will 
never set it down! I? — I cannot so much as write 
my own name. But you, Madame, will you tell 
them some day — some day when we’re all dead and 
buried and gone to the Hell they promise us or the 
Heaven we hope for — even me ! — that you knew 
Charles and loved him, and can tell people that he 
was not so black as — as old Peter Lely paints him!” 
(her merriment rang out afresh) “and that, if you 
think they’ll care to hear, if the gutter-girl was too 
careless with her mud, why she had it washed off 
again when she could.” She held up my spotless 
gown. “That’s clean. And I trust you, when you 
write The History of your Times like good Parson 
Burnet, a pillar of my Church who will never have a 
decent word to say of me (you’ll see!) to tell people 


104 


My Two Kings 


you knew Nelly, and that she was not as black as the 
mud she threw at you ! Promise.” 

It is not in vindication of my word that I write 
now. I don’t think I promised her anything, for I 
put my arms round her and kissed her. I look back 
to all those other fair women, virtuous, some of them, 
and frail, others, who were my friends, and kisses did 
not fly between us as a rule. But I kissed Nelly, and 
I tell you that as I did it, I am thankful I felt meek 
enough, wise enough, to be glad — not that I gave the 
kiss, but that she took it. 


Laced into the grey lawn afresh, my sober hood 
donned, Henry Sidney escorted me back to my lodgings 
a few minutes later. 

We met Monmouth on the doorstep ! 

“I come to wait on you and you are from home!” 
cried that spoiled darling of the Court in indignant 
remonstrance. 

Harry Sidney and I went off into peals of laughter. 
“Oh sir, oh sir!” I said, (of course lie was laughing 
too). “Am I never to stir abroad? I was not aware 
your Grace ever intended to honour my humble abode, 
yet I see, of course, that I should have sat at home 
always in hope.” 

“Your monstrous sharp tongue!” said Monmouth, 
amusedly. 

“Sharp?” I cried. “Of a certainty. I’ve been 
polishing it most of the afternoon at Mr. Sidney’s ex- 
pense. Do I cut, sir?” 

“Madame, you’ve been blunt with me — bluntly frank, 
that is,” smiled Beau Sidney. “Our friend here would 
be the better of a little sharpening, perhaps.” And 
he bowed and was gone. 

Nothing could annoy Monmouth, anyhow. “Sid- 
ney thinks he’s so clever,” he said reflectively, gazing 


Men and Women 


105 


after the departing exquisite, “and he is not. Now I 
know I am not.” 

“Oh, sir, who told you that terrible lie?” I cried. 

“His Majesty, I should say, about three times daily; 
but Madame, if you call the King a liar to me, I must 
take steps ” 

“Take these, you silly boy!” I cried, out of all 
patience, catching him by the arm and giving him 
a little push up the stairs to my lodgings. “Come 
within and try my tea , 1 and tell me why you waited 
on me, and for me.” 

“I came because I wanted to see you, why else?” 
smiled Monmouth, hat in hand, standing back to 
let me enter my withdrawing-room. “Why else do 
I ever go to see a lady?” This was too much for 
me, it was so absolutely true. We all seemed to be 
playing parts then, but once and again I saw these 
people who became so dear to me in the clear light 
of their own frank statements, and of those trivial 
times the memory stays clearer than it might have 
remained at tremendous crises in the history of the 
day — but did not. Herein lies the great fault of 
these reminiscences. I write to you of men and women, 
not of princes and politics, crowns and kingdoms — 
just human beings, such as I was myself, such as I 
still am. 

He leaned back in my most lordly chair, a glowing 
figure in my modest lodging, brave in his uniform — 
there had been a rehearsal that morning before the 
storm, of the Maestricht mimic fight, and he was in 
the full dress, the fine battle array of those days, when 
great courtiers and commanders took the field in the 
most brilliant colours and gold, glittering armour 
and magnificent horse-trappings and camp furniture. 

i I was well used to this increasingly modish beverage, as I had 
had it sent me from Holland for several years. 


106 


My Two Kings 


He leaned back and he smiled! He had the rare gift 
of being absolutely silent at times, restless creature, 
if not talkative, as he was. My woman brought tea 
and a little modest confectionery — not half so ex- 
travagant as Nelly’s ratafia and sugared cakes ! — and 
I, who had spoiled my appetite, plied him with what 
I had to offer, (he laughed, and vowed he indulged 
but seldom in so intoxicating a draught!) and would 
not let him wait on me, as y with his ever charming 
manners, he tried to do, but insisted on serving him 
myself. The sun was just going down. Outside the 
windows a blue evening, one of those rare summer 
nights that make one feel as if one were inside a great 
sapphire, had set in, the air clear-washed by the rain, 
the whole earth sweet. His Grace helped himself to 
another cake and remarked, “So, Madame, we are not 
to lose you?” 

“Lose me?” I asked bewildered. “You have had 
me here for three weeks, and by His Majesty’s gra- 
cious invitation I believe I stay out the month and see 
your great siege (which will be rare sport) ! After 
that I go back into my obscurity again and live on my 
gay memories.” 

Monmouth smiled afresh. “Why, yes, cousin, if you 
call Whitehall your ‘obscurity !’ ” 

I jumped, literally; certainly I did nothing else, un- 
less a little gasp counts. 

“Oh, aye,” he continued, “have you not heard? Gad ! 
that’s like the King. You say you’ve been in his com- 
pany at Mrs. Nell’s and he said no word. Ah, he 
was afraid of being thanked!” 

“So Mistress Gwyn said,” I cried, “and the King 
bade me withhold my gratitude till I had something to 
thank him for.” 

Monmouth laughed aloud once more. “Again, so 
like him. You have now; at least I trust you will 
think so. His Majesty was talking over certain 


Men and Women 


107 


matters with Will Chiffinch only last night — I was 
present. They settled your future lodging for you, 
if you will have it (and may I say I hope you will?) 
There is room, poor enough, I fear, and none too 
large, but ’twill suit a lady for bedroom and with- 
drawing room, be she” — he looked roguishly at me 
— “of no exacting tastes. It is part of that portion of 
the Palace set aside for Their Majesties’ sempstresses. 
These wenches require a nominal (merely nominal) 
overseer; and if you would deign to accept the post, 
which carries with it a nominal (merely nominal) 
salary, why, cousin, we should have you under our 
roof and always with us. The Queen hath re- 
marked the exquisite lace you work upon when sitting 
in your usual quiet corners ! and the Duchess of 
Richmond hath given a rare account of your 
stitchery; she saith your petticoats are all of your 
own workmanship, and made Mme. de Portsmouth 
quite vexed t’other night by her detailing of their 
beauties — before the King and me? Oh, but we’re 
quite used to petticoats, Madame,” and he bit a piece 
out of the cake and looked at the crescent-shaped 
space his fine teeth had left, with a wickedly discreet 
expression. 

I had so much to say I did not know where to begin. 
I stammered, and then stopped, and began again. 
“Sir,” I said, “then indeed I have much to thank 'the 
King for, the Duchess of Richmond, and perhaps ” — 
I looked at him — “my kinsman ‘His Grace my Lord 
General the Duke of Monmouth’?” 

“My Lady Mistress of the Sewing-Maids,” said 
Monmouth, leaning forward in his chair, with a hand 
on either arm, and the dying light shining on his 
young, sweet-tempered, loveable beauty. “Do you not 
think — may I suggest it — that as you will soon be so 
occupied in future, ‘James’ will save time when you 
address me?” 


108 


My Two Kings 


There was a scratch at the door, the key turned, 
and Henrietta Wentworth stood in the doorway, 
slender, elegant, simply but tastefully attired in a fresh 
printed calico gown, her entry suddenly checked by 
the realisation of whom I had with me, her pale cheeks 
growing white, her tawny eyes darkening to black as 
her pupils dilated. She bit her lip. “Your pardon, 

indeed, Madame. I was unaware ” She curtsied 

to Monmouth and made as if to withdraw. 

He was up out of his chair, one swift movement and 
he caught the door as she tried to draw it to. “Nay, 
Mistress,” he said, “I was on the point of departure. 
I have but come to tell Madame some news I thought 
might please her! We are to have more of Madame’s 
company when we return to town, Lady ' Henrietta. 
She will be at Whitehall in future, and, with you at 
St. James’s, the life to come holds some sunshine!” and 
he bowed with the same easy grace with which he spoke 
the compliment. 

She looked at me, never once at him, though I, 
after one sight of her face, kept my eyes away from 
hers. I knew, though she had not guessed I knew, 
the court he had paid to Eleanor Needham, among 
the Duchess of York’s ladies, all that year, and I 
knew from his own lips he had never taken any notice 
of this light, white-faced girl with the eyes that dark- 
ened with suppressed emotion at the sight of him; and 
I, what was I to prove? a rival, an enemy, one of 
those clever women who had much to do with public 
affairs, their day of gallantry being over? — a nonentity 
tucked away in a corner of the King’s great house? — 
an intimate friend and relation of His Majesty’s? — a 
guide, philosopher, and counsellor of this fascinating, 
wayward, wicked boy? 

She did not know, she was to find out later; she 
tried, at that moment, to efface herself entirely and 
was not allowed. Monmouth, with his characteristic 


Men and Women 


109 


lack of tact, for which in after years I once shook him, 
literally ! reiterated that he was about to go, kissed 
our hands, and went, leaving my little room the dimmer 
for the removal of his presence. 

Lady Wentworth turned quickly to me and spoke 
on an abrupt note. “Again I ask your pardon, I 
believed you disengaged. Mrs. Villiers is in attend- 
ance on the Duchess to-night, and hath so cruel a 
headache I have taken upon myself to consult you, 
Madame Stuart. She is not fit to quit her chamber. 
I have not the Duchess’s confidence as she hath; I 
hardly like to take it upon myself to send a messenger 
or suggest a substitute. There is a page below, and 
should I send him, or would you of your goodness 
write a billet and say you think Mrs. Villiers too 
unwell?” 

“Let me come down to her,” I said without further 
ado, “and then I’ll take it upon myself to restrain 
her. I am bidden to Her Majesty’s basset-table, and 
if, Lady Wentworth, you are commanded instead of 
Mrs. Villiers, will you come with me ? Bid Mrs. Villiers 
let me see her for a moment; perhaps ’tis only an 
ordinary headache.” 

“She suffers from them,” answered Henrietta, 
“oftener than she will admit. She studies still, and 
has a heavy correspondence. I think it naught but 
over-fatigue.” 

“There are worse aches,” I remarked, as we went 
downstairs. “Heart-ache, for example.” 

“Heart-ache must be hard to bear,” said, bravely, 
this daughter of ruined Cavaliers, with a firm voice, 
as we arrived at the maids-of-honour’s rooms and asked 
Elizabeth’s admittance. 

“It is,” I replied, as her woman let us in. 


As I anticipated, the messenger came back from 


110 


My Two Kings 


the Castle excusing Mrs. Villiers’s attendance, and 
commanding Lady Wentworth’s instead. She was at 
the door of her room on the ground floor when I 
descended from above on the arrival of our sedans, 
her girlish figure, tall and straight as a golden ear of 
wheat on its golden stem, in a pale tawny silk, softly 
shimmering of surface, with one great jewel on the 
breast, a cross of square dark red stones, heavily 
set in enamelled gold with whole pearls in the Tudor 
fashion, an heirloom. An old type of dress, cer- 
tainly, but one in which she looked very young. She 
had but few gowns, but they were most attractive, 
and unlike those of the other maids. That silk 
had been brought from Holland’s great Oriental 
bazaars. In time to come, not only the Lady Mary 
as Princess of Orange, but Eliza Villiers as her lady- 
in-waiting, were to go a-buying there, and, still 
farther in the future, Henrietta and myself ! It nar- 
rows life to a point sometimes, such a recollection — 
a sharp point. 

Nobody reckoned her a beauty then, but I admired 
her always. I loved her almond-shaped eyes, so much 
darker than her hair, which was not of a fashionable 
shade, but a truly lovely one. I liked her clear trans- 
parent pallor, and a certain air of the old days about 
her. Henrietta Wentworth was dubbed old-fashioned, 
but she brought to me always the ancient romantic 
Cavalier atmosphere; always I thought of her when 
I remembered that exquisite verse: 

“My dear and only love, I pray 
This little world of thee 
Be governed by no other sway 
Than purest monarchy.” 

There was about her just a touch of the Great 
Marquess’s lofty grandeur, the fine soul, the air of 
high aim and direct purpose. With it, I suppose, 
there was an admixture of Dutch self-control and 


Men and Women 


111 


patience — a queer mixture, I thought, Wentworth and 
Cary blood with a dash of Spanish! (so they said). 
No, Henrietta Baroness Wentworth was not quite like 
other young girls at King Charles’s Court. 

I want to say at once that she was a woman of her 
time for all that, Lady Wentworth held her own and 
took her place. She had admirers — indeed, several 
suitors for her hand — but I (who guessed her secret 
early) saw how well she managed them, how stead- 
fastly she set her face towards her ultimate goal, with 
what wonderful patience and tact for so young a girl, 
still in her teens, she did nothing at all while she waited 
for my lord Duke to turn to her. She never had the 
wild high spirits, real or assumed, of so many of us, 
she seldom of her own freewill joined in the raillery, 
and the daily flint-striking-steel of wit meeting wit, 
and laughter, laughter, did not often include her. The 
King always appreciated her, even if he, too, did very 
little — he was careful never to single her out as being 
one of his especial favourites (that, too, I soon noticed) ; 
the Duke of York began by liking her too, and was 
long before he discovered how cordially she detested 
him ! the poor little insignificant Queen and she were 
certainly good friends. 

Queen Catherine liked me undoubtedly, but our re- 
lations never became intimate. I cannot say why; I 
tried to please and serve her in a quiet way, and I 
imagined that when once I was installed at Whitehall 
I might see her often. As a matter of fact, I saw very 
little of her. She made use of my services, she seemed 
to trust me, seemed not ill-pleased that I should be 
near her, she was kind and pleasant, yet she led her 
quiet retired life and I mine so small a distance apart, 
that I look back now and wonder how it was that we 
were truly apart indeed. 

I cannot blame her. I blame nobody. 

In that life of mine I strove — and I strive still — 


112 


My Two Kings 


to accuse none of those I knew of the heinous crimes 
for which they were fond of calling each other to 
account ! In all the literature of the period bitter 
personal partisanship rages, and it wearies me now as it 
wearied me then. Partisan I am myself in one matter 
only: I believe Charles II was rather the saviour of 
England during the stormy twenty-five years of his 
reign than her ruin. The means he employed I do 
not judge; I have tried to judge by results. I know 
what my opinion of the public men of his day was, 
and I have not changed it. 

And of Monmouth’s rights or wrongs I say no word. 
He was the King’s son — or he was not. He was the 
King’s legitimate son — or he was not. He was the 
rightful heir to the English throne — or he was not. 
But which he was, Sidney or Stuart, bastard or Prince, 
I did not know, and I do not know now. And I think 
I may say that if I do not, nobody does. 


“Well, my friend,” I remarked to myself in the glass 
that night, “since her Grace of Portsmouth bespat- 
tered you in the street after dinner to-day, you have 
got through a good deal! Where is this life going to 
land you in the end?” 

Perhaps the strangest part of that life was the fact 
that it landed me exactly where it took me up, and 
I was left, acknowledging no king, in that England 
which, for my sins, I had counted as second to my two 
Kings. 


UNDER THE ROYAL ROOF 





CHAPTER VII 


UNDER THE ROYAL ROOF 

“He was a vicious man, but very kind to me.” — D r. Johnson. 

To give an order to Mr. Chiffinch was to see that order 
fully carried into execution the next time you thought 
of it ! — at least, so King Charles once told me. 

A couple of rooms among the rather large collection 
set apart for the Royal sempstresses were suggested 
by the Keeper of the King’s Closet as available for 
my use, the King agreed, bade Chiffinch have all in 
order for Madame Stuart on the return of the Court 
to town, and the thing was done. There was cer- 
tainly no time to have the lodging actually finished, 
for me in a week, but it was filled with workmen and 
half way to completion ; meantime I took a very 
modest apartment not far from the Palace (entirely 
refusing to billet myself on the Duchess of Richmond 
any further, owing her as much as I did), and in a 
very short space of time the rooms were ready for 
me and my woman. Looking on to the river, giving 
upon one of the minor galleries, which in turn looked 
out into the open air, these two rooms, panelled from 
floor to ceiling, were reduced in size (it was all Chif- 
finch’s planning) by a slice, as it were, being cut off 
them by the erection of a thin but sound-proof panelled 
division, running along their entire length, so that 
in the space between them and the corridor there was 
room for a small ante-chamber and a tiny closet for 
my woman. 


115 


116 


My Two Kings 


The walls of the parlour were of beautiful old dark 
carving — linen-fold pattern — but the bedroom, having 
been newly lined, had panelling of fresh wood, which 
had been simply waxed, and the whole was a soft light 
greyish-fawn, very restful. 

The ante-room, not being very light — it was merely 
what would now be called an entrance-hall, but was 
an absolute necessity, as visitors could not be shown 
straight in upon me — I lit with an old brass lamp 
originally Dutch, and merely furnished with a bench 
and a chair or two beside one small table, with a strip 
of brilliant Indian red Oriental carpet on the floor and 
red stuff curtains to the windows — a cosy enough little 
entry. 

The bedroom especially pleased me. I had the 
small amount of furniture I still retained sent up from 
the country — a fine carved bed which had hangings 
of ancient embroidered linen toned by time to the 
same colour, though a paler shade, of the walls, 
worked delightfully with such fruit and flowers as 
Nature never knew in dim greens and reds. The 
quilt was a handsome affair of Tudor workmanship, 
and had belonged to my family for generations, green 
velvet heavily wrought in (now) dull gold and with 
thick long silken fringes. Over this to protect it I 
usually laid a lace cover of my own making, again of 
the soft fawn shade, in a coarse thread but elaborate 
stitch, the green and gold work gleaming through. 
The toilette-table was a lovely piece of French 
cabinet-making, the one armoire the room contained 
was of Dutch marquetry, the chairs were the plain 
high-backed wand-seated genre of that day. A pair 
of fine Spanish leather screens were part of my 
furniture, one plain, the other stamped and gilt, the 
plain one serving for the bedroom, the other the 
withdrawing-room. As for the dark wood floors, 
they were treated in the French fashion, like all those 


Under the Royal Roof 


117 


at Whitehall, and I merely laid down on them a col- 
lection of skins, trophies of my late husband’s hunting 
and shooting days — half a dozen or so fawn-hued 
deerskins in the bedroom, and in the reception room 
several larger and darker red deer, while I had evolved 
a great warm rug, almost a carpet, before the fire, out 
of a collection of Scottish fox pelts, of splendidly red- 
brown colouring. 

It was idle to deny that my rooms were rather 
empty. I thought so as I stood, one misty grey 
September morning, having come round from my lodg- 
ings to settle my household stuff newly brought up from 
Hertfordshire. 

The beautiful proportions of my reception room — 
quite large enough for a lonely woman of quiet habits 
— with the wide but low windows almost filling its 
outer side, deep-hued walls, ceiling, and parquet, 
were very pleasing to the eye, and the room was so 
light the dark panelling did not matter. The rich 
brown skins were laid on the floor, the gilded leather 
screen partially hid the door into the bedroom, a 
little cabinet-maker patronised by Frances had 
provided me with a really well-executed copy of the 
cabinet given her by the King . 1 I had another 
Dutch lamp, this time a copper one, of that lovely 
pale copper that is as light and nearly as golden as 
brass, also a couple of pairs of copper candlesticks. 
A small table in one window held in a fine antique if 
well-worn inlaid desk and my writing materials, and 
there were a couple of chairs like those in my bed- 
room, the cane-work of which had been lightened witli 
gold; but I was conscious of much that lacked! — no 
couch, no cushions, no looking-glass (“I must borrow 
one of Mrs. Nelly,” I said half aloud, thinking of 

i This has been lately on view in Edinburgh, and is a beautiful 
piece of Jacobean work, with hearts in high relief, and enriched 
with ivory and tortoise-shell. 


118 


My Two Kings 


her mirror-lined room), no arm-chairs, no footstools, 

no pictures but a few miniatures, no “A great 

many ‘noes,’ ” I added to myself, looking round the 
room. And I must get some colour into it some- 
how.” 

I got some colour into it as I spoke ; there was a 
knock at the outer door, and my somewhat flustered 
maid appeared. “Oh, Madame, quality !” — followed 
by a gay laugh, and the further unannounced entry 
of my beloved sinner, Monmouth himself. He had 
just come from drilling his cavalry in Hyde Park, 
the scarlet roquelaure was still about his shoulders 
half hiding the gorgeous uniform. A braver figure I 
never saw. 

“Aye, quality !” he cried gaily. “Cousin, you’re 
welcome! Is this your public entry into Whitehall? 
Where are the arches and flowers and shouting 
mobile? For the matter of that” — he kissed the hand 
hurriedly slid out of an old leather gauntlet to greet 
him, looking half ashamed, half mocking, screwing 
up his face in an absolutely childish grimace as 
Frances sometimes did — “my own return is without 
blast of trumpet! As for St. James’s” — he slipped 
out of the roquelaure and called his page, in waiting 
in the ante-room, to take that, his hat, and his gloves — 
“why, I shall pay my respects at St. James’s later, 
a good deal later. There has been the devil’s own 
hullabaloo.” 

“I know it,” I said drily, serious, but with laugh- 
ing eyes perforce answering his. “And you nearly 
swept me into your hullabaloos as a fine start-off be- 
fore ever I was come to this place ! James” — I dropped 
my gloves and laid both hands on his arm as we 
stood together by the window, my maid and his page 
effacing themselves — “see here. No, don’t explain; 
I knew the whole story at Windsor, but others 
did not. I was sent for to be catechised by the Duke 


Under the Royal Roof 


119 


of York, but he would not listen, even though he 
sent for me to question me.” Here Monmouth and 
I made exactly the same face, and I shook his arm 
impatiently. 

“A plague on you !” I cried. “You’ve set me down 
black — oh, black! — in his Highness’s blackest books, 
and — and I did want to stand well with them both. 
She’s like a Princess in a fairy-tale, and he, I would 
respect and admire him if I might. Don’t stand in 
my way there, James.” 

The brown eyes looked impudently into mine, un- 
abashed. “You see, Madame, that you have to choose 
already. No, not between saints and sinners: between 
sinners and sinners. And not between Stuart and 
Cromwell, eh? but between Stuart and” (he laughed 
shortly) “Scott. For whom are you going to be? 
James of York or James of Monmouth?” 

I might have known it would come to that. I had 
seen a good deal during my month at Windsor ! 

“You order me to choose?” I said, drawing back 
a little, but he caught my hands, one in each of his. 

“Oh, no,” he smiled, “I do not order a lady. I — - 
suggest — that she shall tell me whether she is my friend 
or whether she is . . . my uncle’s.” 

“Why, I’m not your uncle’s, that’s a fact,” I said 
ruefully, and we both laughed outright. 

“So you’ll have to be mine; what a fate! I know 
you can’t be expected to respect and admire me, and 

I’m not even like a Prince out of a fairy story ” 

* “Oh, but you are, you are!” I interrupted, and he 
let the smile die from his exquisitely cut mouth. 

“Yes — perhaps — since nowhere else, Madame ma 
cousine. Well, we won’t be too sad. You look like a 
disguised queen!” 

I glanced down at my attire, a strictly utilitarian 
one. “Sir,” I said, “I’m settling my house; you 
come in unannounced, or announced as ‘quality’ 


120 


My Two Kings 


— descriptive (and discriminating) in Whitehall — and 
you catch me thus.” Again I looked down at myself. 
I was dressed in a striped laycock petticoat, a laced- 
across bodice and a full smock were half hidden by 
a big useful apron, and my hair was tucked away 
in the pretty undress cap of the period, so as to be 
out of the dust. I do not think Monmouth and I ever 
presented a more marked contrast; we both realised 
it at the same moment. 

“You, you popinjay!” I cried, in feigned indig- 
nation at his magnificence, “You find me all unready, 
and working like a scullion! Now, are you going 
to make it worth my while to sacrifice St. James’s 
for you?” 

Monmouth gave a laugh. “Yes, I’ll do that,” he 
said, and went to the door, leaving me by the window 
looking after him. 

I sighed. “You will, I dare say!” I said to myself, 
and picked up my gauntlets. Hardly had I pulled 
them on again — hands must be soft and white how- 
ever hard one worked at Whitehall — than he was 
back once more, the door of the ante-room as well as 
the outer entrance were flung wide, two men were 
carrying in a large piece of furniture, and yet another 
two followed, his Grace’s page and my maid guarding 
lintels and wainscots, Monmouth looking on amused 
in the background. “See, Madame, I have had to 
rearrange my lodgings in the Cockpit, and am hard 
put to it to know what to do with a few odd sticks 
of furniture — will you of your charity give them a 
home ?” 

The odd sticks were a glorious old Elizabethan 
couch, of curved, high-arching back, covered with 
silk and wool work that had once been orange and 
scarlet and brightest brown, with a touch or two of 
pink, but which had all mellowed to a lovely melange 
of apricot and rosy-gold; a square footstool on four 


Under the Royal Roof 


121 


legs en suite; one of the new modish mirrors in an 
oblong tortoise-shell frame; a couple of very fine 
arm-chairs, beautifully carved, with the King’s cypher 
and crown in gilt, and upholstered in russet velvet. 
“For His Majesty, Madame; one when he sits by your 
fire, one when you hold a levee in bed.” On the top 
of all this, a heap — a literal heap — of cushions, silk 
and velvet, in shades of cream, apricot, orange, tawny, 
russet, and one flame-pink. 

“I thought they would set off the couch,” said their 
owner, with his head on one side (the man who had 
no taste, according to History!) and he took from his 
page’s hand a more carefully wrapped package. 

“I know the way the sun strikes through these win- 
dows, and I thought you might like the light shining 
on these dishes;” and then the wrappers strewed the 
floor suddenly, and on each sill was a large flattish 
bowl cut from a single piece of semi-precious stone — 
one of ruddy, nearly opaque cornelian, one of veined 
translucent, honey-coloured agate. 

“Those I hate!” remarked Monmouth serenely, “I 
have but commanded them to be brought for your 
inspection, as I recalled your fondness for crystals 
and spars and the like. They have cunningly worked 
feet — look.” He turned over the cornelian dish and 
showed me the silver-gilt base, and the four chased 
knobs on which it rested. 

I see him thus, in all his splendour, the glorious 
russet and brown of his colouring, the fine slender 
hands that were yet strong enough to hold in any 
horse however unbroken, the perfect poise of the 
classic young figure, and the glowing red-and-gold of 
the bowl he held, and, looking at him I forgot to 
speak. He glanced up and caught my eye; I suppose 
I looked too solemn. Misunderstanding, he made a 
quick movement as if to ward off the thanks I had 
not yet uttered, the protests I should have made. 


122 


My Two Kings 


“They please you?” he asked. “Then ’tis more than 
they do me. So both parties are satisfied.” 

He was quite proud of what he thought was his 
subtle finesse, I could see! He did not know that 
for me thenceforward he was to remain in my mind’s 
eyes a study in the colouring he had added that morn- 
ing to my little room: all the golds and browns that 
hold red in them, and the auburn that lingers in 
darkest Stuart curls and most sombre Stuart eyes. 
And I wonder if the Stuarts of Scotland borrowed 
those tints from their own land, from the precious 
stones of their hills that seem but peat-water crystal- 
lised — the gold and brown stones and the gold and 
brown water. 


Ah, how it all comes back to me! Once the King 
owned a trifle. When they come to bury me they 
will find a little packet hung round my neck on a 
thin gold chain, and in it one black pearl, the story 
of which will be told in these memoirs, a curl of black 
hair streaked with grey, a curl of darkest brown with 
just one auburn thread or two, and a little diamond- 
set seal of peat-water-hued cairngorm. After King 
Charles died, Ailesbury sent it to me. I did not 
quite know why. I asked him later, holding it in my 
hand as I was wont to do for hours, letting the light 
shine through the gold and the brown of it. I said, 
“My dear lord, how much I value this I can never 
tell you. I saw it so often in His Majesty’s hands. 
But why did you part with it, and why did you give 
it to me?” 

“Madame,” was the answer, “it is yours. They 

gave it to me after his death, but ” He stopped. 

“I can tell you this ; no more. The King wrote 
you a letter the night he first felt ill, one of his 
usual cypher letters, sealed with this agreed-upon 


Under the Royal Roof 


123 


seal .” 1 Ailesbury paused. He looked at me and his 
face changed, as he saw the change in mine. 

“But oh, Bruce,” I cried — calling him by his old 
name as always — “I never had the letter ! Were there 
others too ? Did he write to — to ” 

“There was another to the Duke of Monmouth — 
that I know ; a third to the Prince — to King William. 
You never had yours, Madame? — nor Monmouth his? 
— but the Prince . . .” 

I got up. “Bruce, my dear,” I said, “it’s all 
over and done with. They’re dead and nothing 
could bring them back, and so it does not matter. 
But my cousin James had no letter, nor had I. King 
William? Ask him! He will tell you as surely as 
— as I do not. I did not understand a great many 
things then, but I understand one thing now. King 
James was set on having the throne, and he had it. 
King William was set on having the throne, and he 
has it. So, Bruce, my dear, I have — the seal of the 
letter I never had, the King’s last letter to me! Oh, 
to have been given it, Bruce! What was in it — 
what ?” 

“I did not know,” he replied, shaking his head. “No, 
I do not know. But if we both knew now, of what use 
would it be?” 

I shook my head in turn. “None,” I said. 
“None.” I held the cairngorm up to the light. Like 
sunshine slanting through the iris of a brown eye it 
gleamed between my fingers. “You knew I did not 
get that letter, nor Monmouth his?” I asked sud- 
denly. 

“I knew nothing,” said Ailesbury. “There were the 
letters ; and there is the seal. You have that.” 

I have that. 

Some day, when Charles and I meet again in the 


1 1 had not realised till then that he knew so much. 


124 


My Two Kings 


spirit-world, he will see me holding out the ghost of 
a little brown stone seal which closed his last letter 
written on earth. So, when they bury me, I want 
them to take the seal out of the packet over my 
heart, and shut it in my fingers — just to be ready, in 
case ! 

It is all folly. The good bishop — an old friend of 
mine who sometimes comes to St. Albans Abbey to 
deliver one of his famous discourses — laughed at me, 
quite kindly, when I told him once what I wished 
done. 

“But my daughter,” he said, “we shall take nothing 
with us.” 

“No, my lord,” I responded, “of course not. And 
I shall not need to talk to King Charles about such 
trifles as seals or letters.” He laughed again, still 
kindly, but as if he were dealing with a child. 

“You will not talk about such things at all,” he 
said decidedly and deliberately. “And I would not 
think too much, Madame Stuart, of meeting again in 
another life his late Majesty and his unfortunate son.” 
He stopped, because I laughed, and he thought I was 
going to be angry. 

“No, my lord bishop,” I smiled, “I will not think 
too much about meeting them again!” A sentence 
that might be taken whichever way one chose. I 
left him to choose. I know which way he chose to take 
it; for myself I know this, that wherever I go I shall 
meet King Charles and the Duke of Monmouth, and 
all the differences in our lives and our creeds will be 
straightened out, and all the sins of omission and 
commission will be expiated, and all the things we did 
not know be made plain, and the love we gave and 
the love we got will be there waiting for us, multiplied 
a thousand — a million-fold — all the love, and all the 
laughter ! 

That is what I believe ; and the bishop believes 


Under the Royal Roof 


125 


otherwise. One is right and the other wrong — we can 
but believe, and die, and go to find out. 


The memory of the cornelian dish has swept me 
far away from the hour of its presentation! I left 
the Duke with it in his hands, showing me, boyishly, 
the details of its feet. Monmouth’s preference ran 
to yellows and blues ; he never saw himself, as I saw 
and see him, in the autumn-leaf colourings that to 
my mind made his most becoming setting. I loved 
his good looks in my parlour, among the cushions he 
had provided, backed by the brown linen-fold panel- 
ling, enhanced by the pale Dutch copper. His mirror 
I hung lengthways (it was an oblong) over my mantel- 
piece, bringing in a new fashion, as I found to my 
surprise ! I hate a looking-glass hung too high ; 
I want it to be useful, every inch of it. And my 
miniatures also must be where all could see them, 
and so were suspended on each side of the fireplace: 
naught of much value — family portraits none too well 
done, but one of Mr. Cooper’s latest, just before his 
death, of my husband, and (before long) the copy 
of the Cooper portrait of Monmouth at Windsor. 
“You shall have something nearer the Monmouth you 
know than that!” remarked his Grace on seeing it, 
and forthwith I was bidden go to Mr. Lely and select 
any sketch of his I pleased, since I had said I had 
never yet seen an oil portrait of Monmouth that I 
thought a good likeness. 

Lely’s drawings were wonderful. I have been to 
Mr. Pepys’s house more than once, and have turned 
over his collection; the King too had some beautiful 
examples. Sir Peter — I always forget to give him 
his title — drew me once, just a rough sketch, standing 
behind Frances Richmond’s chair one afternoon when 
we were together at his studio, bending over her — 


126 


My Two Kings 


very like me, but by no means fair enough for Frances, 
as I told him to his face. (I would I knew where it 
is now!) I have a copy of the portrait of Frances 
by him, now at Antwerp, the only one I ever really 
liked of her , 1 and that denies her half her beauty. 
She laughed when I said so. “We really lovely 
people,” she said cynically, “like James, and me, 
and Colonel Churchill, and our dear pleasant Harry” 
(Henry Sidney), “never receive due justice. You 
portrait painters score your greatest successes when 
you paint — shall I say His Majesty? and Arran, and 
the irresistible little Jermyn; and in days to come 
Cathie Sedley and Eliza Yilliers will ravish the eyes 
of posterity — they don’t now!” she added thought- 
fully, with a sunny smile. “Think of their brains, 
though, sir? ah, ’tis the mind you paint and not the 
poor face! No wonder Madame Stuart considers that 
the Duke of Monmouth and the Duchess of Richmond 
will never show their greatest charms to future genera- 
tions on canvas !” 

Madame Stuart did so consider the case, and does 
still ; nobody ever painted or modelled either the 
Duchess of Richmond or the Duke of Monmouth in 
a way which did justice to their “real loveliness.” 


The proximity of my rooms to the Sovereigns’ 
apartments, modestly tucked away among the Royal 
sewing-maids as they were, undoubtedly puzzled 
many people. I do not know to this day why I was 
lodged there. I was under the impression that 
Frances Richmond engineered it, but I have won- 
dered since whether it were not more Chiffinch’s 
doing than hers. She may have thought I should 

1 Her portrait as Bellona is surprisingly like the Goodwood 
full-length of Monmouth. 


Under the Royal Roof 


127 


make a good friend for the Queen in future (that 
never happened) ; Chiffinch may have thought that 
rooms so close to both his and the King’s would prove 
useful politically. That they were so near the King 
undoubtedly accounted for the more frequent pleasure 
I had in his company than if I had been placed farther 
afield! As a matter of fact, Katherine Crofts and 
I, nearly contemporaries, and both lodged at Court 
with no ostensible reason, so often honoured, were only 
divided by the apartments of the maids-of-honour, 
though her rooms — really allotted to her brother, Lord 
Crofts — gave upon the Stone Gallery, away from the 
river, and mine were overlooking the water itself, to 
my lasting joy. 

The Duchess of Richmond did not come to inspect 
my new dwelling till a week or two later, when all was 
duly in order. 

“ ’Tis a cruel kindness to walk in upon a poor soul 
playing the good house-wife and disposing of her 
chattels,” she said, when I waited upon her just before 
finally moving in. “I’ll be with you when you are 
fairly ready for company. Have you had any yet, 
by the way?” 

“No one but his Grace of Monmouth!” I 
laughed. 

“ ‘No one !’ ” mocked Frances. “And oh ! that young 
man. I might have known. H’m, did he count your 
cooking pans for you, and hammer his pretty fingers 
hanging up your pictures? Think of the domestic 
side of James ! but I do not doubt there is one, and 
more ladies than you have seen it. I hear he hath 
established a friend in distant Russell Street of late — 
have you heard?” 

“Why, Duchess,” I said, “I heat nothing, and what 
I hear I forget.” 

“Egad,” said Frances, “you’re laying up a dull 
future for yourself, my dear !” 


128 


My Two Kings 


“Dull at Whitehall?” I asked. “You may remember 
I never said I did not see.” 

“And have you seen as far as Russell Street?” she 
smiled. 

I smiled too. “At present I am blind to that part 
of the town,” I retorted; “but who knows? My sight 
may return. No, my pans and my pictures were let 
alone, except for an addition to the latter, but I have 
some mighty fine new furniture — and cushions — and a 
pair of coloured spar basins that I shall be pleased 
to show you when you do come.” 

“Gifts?” cried her Grace, “and from whom? His 
Majesty?” 

“His Majesty, I think, hath forgotten I am there,” 
I said amusedly. “Some day we shall meet — collide 
— in the corridor, and he will exclaim, ‘Oddsfish, 
but it’s the old Stuart pensioner ! Will Chiffinch, 
what is she doing here? Where did you bestow her 
after all?’ ” 

Frances went off into one of her enchanting ripples 
of mirth. “You think so? I’ll prove you wrong. 
The King asked me only last night in the Queen’s 
bedchamber whether you were settled in and if you 
had all you required, and Monmouth from the door 
of Her Majesty’s ante-room cried out, before I could 
reply, that } T ou were nearly established, and had every- 
thing but the curtains for your saloon. His Majesty 
smiled and said, ‘Bless the boy, he is always seeing to 
the ladies’ lodgings ! — she shall have her curtains, 
though.’ To which I replied, ‘Oh, but Sire, I am to 
have the pleasure of looking after those ; I am but now 
having a set of my ivory brocade lined and fringed 
with tawny silk made to fit.’ ” 

I gave an exclamation of pretended annoyance 
and real gratitude. “My kindest benefactress, you 
have done too much for me. I will not take your 
curtains !” 


Under the Royal Roof 


129 


“Then,” retorted the Duchess, “you must put up 
with the King’s. He had thoughts of sending a 
gentleman at once with that great bronze velvet 
cloak of his, saying the maids under your command 
would cut it up into capital hangings — ‘Being I’m 
tall, and it’s wide !’ he explained to me. ‘But I 
would not for the world try to rival Richmond brocade. 
Nay, but Madame Stuart shall use it for a table- 
cover, or even a bedspread. Do you think that she 
would sleep less soundly covered with what has covered 
me?’ The Queen laughed here. ‘Why do you offer 
Mistress Stuart your cast-off clothing?’ she said, and 
he shrugged his shoulders. ‘It sounds amiss,’ he cried ; 
‘but what have I to give but cast-off goods?’ Her 
Majesty looked once at him and was silent — why! 
we know what her Grace of Portsmouth gets out 
of ” 

“Oh!” I said, a little impatiently, “can’t you be 
forgetful, or ignorant, or blind too? What matters 
it to us?” 

“Nay, but it matters to my mistress,” said Frances 
Richmond, rapier-swift, and I replied, “I know it, for- 
give me ; but ‘The King can do no wrong.’ ” 

“My dear soul,” said my cousin, taking me by my 
arm and looking into my face with that quizzing smile 
of hers, “is that the line you mean to take? For 
you’ll have to swear black is white if ’tis the case!” 

“I’ll swear nothing,” I said stoutly. “See you, where 
should I be but for yours and His Majesty’s kindness 
to me?” 

“Do you also add: ‘Frances Stuart can do no 
wrong’?” she asked, with the same smile. 

“Certainly,” I answered; “ can you?” 

“Without a shadow of doubt!” she laughed. “Ask 
the world.” 

“Never,” I said, with emphasis ; “never. I’ll take 
the measure of the Stuarts with my own wand. ‘Ask 


130 


My Two Kings 


the world.’ Do you fancy I am going to form my 
estimate of you, and James, and the King, by what 
these others tell me — or would tell me if I asked them? 
(or tell me now, and I don’t hear!)” 

“That’s loyalty,” remarked the Duchess slowly. “I 
thought we’d forgotten all the old virtues. I do not 
think my cousin King Charles gets much of that service 
nowadays ; it will be new to him.” 

Then it was my turn to laugh. “He’ll never notice 
it,” I said. “What service can I render him, what is 
my loyalty to him?” 

“Ask me that,” replied my friend, “a few years hence. 
Ask the young Duke then, ask the King, and see what 
reply you get.” 

“No” — I shook my head — “I won’t ask them, I 
think.” 

Frances put an arm round my waist. “There’ll 
be no need — they’ll tell you! Now, which is it to 
be, Richmond rags or His Majesty’s old clothes to 
cover your windows — or your bed? I will come to- 
morrow to see. And your new furniture, ah, yes ! 
What hen-roost has that boy robbed for his — old — 
lady?” She spoke the words slowly, underlining them, 
and punctuating the remark with a little pressure at 
each pause. 

“Oh, how horrible you are!” I cried. “Why should 
he rob one woman to give to another?” 

“Ah, why?” said the Duchess of Richmond. “I can- 
not tell you that. But he does.” 

“I’ll deny it,” I exclaimed hotly. “You’ve 
known him for years, and I have not. Yet I’ll deny 
it.” 

I deny it still. All the women in Monmouth’s life 
occupied their separate niches. I do not think one 
was ever defrauded to enrich another; no, not even 
Anna his Duchess, for all she vowed it. 

“Loyalty, loyalty,” laughed Frances again. “But 


Under the Royal Roof 


131 


how are you going to be loyal to all the Stuarts, my 
girl? When they take opposite sides, par exemple? 
How then?” 

“I choose,” I said. “I’ll be loyal to you, and to 
the King’s son, and the King — just you three.” 

“And supposing you find us all in opposition some 
day?” she asked. 

“Why,” I replied stoutly, “that will set me a 
hard task. I’ve been set hard tasks before, I can 
but try to overcome it, even if I do not succeed. 
Can you imagine yourself in opposition to the 
King?” 

I must have been too deeply preoccupied with the 
thought of my own possible or probable difficulties, 
or I should never have put that question to Frances 
Stuart ! 

She took her arm from round my waist, made 
a quick turn, stood directly in front of me, burst 
into a ringing laugh, and clapped her hands. She 
opened her beautiful lips to speak, but I never let 
her. 

“Stop,” I said, more peremptorily than I had 
ever spoken to her before. “Stop. I am deaf, 
dumb, blind, forgetful, imbecile — just loyal, only 
that. And you have to be but one thing in addition 
to your unforgettable goodness to me, you must also 
be forgiving.” 

“Forgiving?” she smiled. “But you are imbecile, 
my dear. Forgive a Stuart? One is always doing 
that — always, always. If one does not ” 

There was a silence in the room while the echoes of 
her voice died out. “Better kill him and have done 
with it,” she said (“him,” not “her”). “There’s no 
other way.” 


How seldom was she serious! — and yet, on those 


132 


My Two Kings 


rare occasions, from what depths that seriousness came. 
I recollect the end of a conversation I had with her 
at the time when the Duchesse Mazarin came to White- 
hall in 1675. 

“She’s as handsome as the devil!” Frances said 
to me. “I am not translating beaute du diable, 

no! If she had come over ten years ago, when ” 

She paused to catch my eye, and gave a little trill 
of mirth. “1665? H’m! she would have been 
plaguily in my way. Now I can admire her with a 
whole heart. People think I’m jealous ! But my 
good soul, why? You know me and my position. 
I’ve had my day! I play at no rivalry with any one 
under the sun. In the old days, had Madame Venus 
herself entered the lists I would have been ready for 
her. I was beautiful. Tiens! why should I deny 
it, since I do not deny that it is over? Ah, as I 
have told you often, you never saw me before the 
smallpox. (Your loss!) This fine lady, she’s older 
than I am — she’s thirty or nearly, and for an Italian 
that’s old — but she’s far more lovely; and she looks 
younger than I do, though I do not think anybody 
who isn’t a Stuart has good legs and feet,” said Frances 
thoughtfully. “I believe Monmouth and I can play 
any one at that game, and, as a matter of fact, mine 
are better than his — a pity, since his are so much 
more seen!” I gave way to a gurgle of amusement. 
“And smallpox doth not affect that beauty. But legs 
don’t help a woman much — unless her name is Arabella 
Churchill.” 

“Duchess,” I said, trying not to smile, “you’re 
becoming caustic of tongue. You remind me of her 
Grace of Monmouth.” 

“I?” cried Frances; “I remind you of Anna? 
Mercy! I must watch my words. (But thank you for 
telling me, all the same. As she hath the reputation 
for being a wit, I’ll think over that later, and feel 


Under the Royal Roof 


133 


happier.) Now this visitor, this sojourner among us? 
She amuses the Duchess of York — I’m glad she should. 
She won’t amuse the Queen. Whom can we find to 
do that? Surely there is some one ? I give it up, for 
I’ve tried myself!” 

“She doth not want amusing,” I replied, “but some- 
thing quite different.” 

“In this life, my friend,” said the Duchess, stand- 
ing up before my mirror to rearrange her curls, “the 
people who want one thing only, come to grief. For 
either they don’t get it, and then they go through life 
beggared, or they get it, and find, when they have it, 
that it’s not worth having. I” — she waited to twist 
up a curl that had come unrolled — “I, for all they 
said and say of me, never wanted anything. I dare 
say I should have been a happier woman if I had; 
certainly I might have been an unhappier. But since 
I want for nothing, your Duchesse Mazarin can take 
nothing from me; and as for myself, I can praise 
her openly and truthfully — to your face, to hers ! 
You shall hear me do it to-night. I will say to her, 
‘Madame, you know what it is to be perfectly beauti- 
ful, to have broken dozens of hearts, to have had 
lovers by the score in your train, to have married a 
duke, to have been sought in marriage by King 
Charles.’ ” 

Her face suddenly changed and she turned abruptly 
on me. 

“Why,” she said, “why, Charlotte, that’s my story 
as well as hers ; that’s my life. And I’ve done nothing 
with it — with my youth and my birth and my great 
beauty, all the love I’ve had offered me, I have done 
nothing at all.” 

I looked at her. “There’s the Queen,” I said, “the 
woman Charles married and did not love ; there’s 
you, whom he loved and did not marry; there’s 
myself, whom he neither loved nor married. But 


134 My Two Kings 

my life is at his commands. I sit here and await 
them.” * 

“And if he forgets you and doth not send any?” 
asked my cousin curiously, pacing with restless steps 
up and down my room. 

“Here I shall still sit,” I replied. 

“You’re so sure of him as all that?” she asked, 
pausing and looking at me as if she did not quite 
understand. 

“Quite sure,” I said. “There I have the ad- 
vantage! There’s not a woman who believes in him 
— no, not the Duchess of Portsmouth, no, not Queen 
Catherine — only myself, and he knows it. So some- 
times, Frances, you may think it over and understand 
why I’m at peace. Never a beauty, never a breaker 
of hearts, never a duke’s wife, never loved — nor married 
— by the King.” 

“So having nothing, you have everything and are 
satisfied?” she asked slowly. “You’re happy, you have 
what you want?” 

I smiled. “Oh, no,” I said. Frances Richmond gave 
a little comprehending nod. “But haven’t you guessed 
that I have what was never given you? So you see 
me contentedly getting old and whole-heartedly admir- 
ing all you pretty ladies.” 

Frances turned from the mirror. 

“I envy nobody,” she said; “but if I did, I should 
be jealous of you.” 

I went up to her and laid a hand on her beautiful 
wrist. 

“Never !” I said softly. “You do not want his friend- 
ship, his trust, his knowledge that you believe in him. 
‘Confess and be hanged !’ ” 

She laughed outright. Then her fair face whitened. 

“I want nothing,” she said; “but have I anything? 
I have been offered so much; I have nothing at- &H; 
I have done nothing at all. That is my life.” 


Under the Royal Roof 


135 


She sat down on my couch and suddenly covered her 
face with her hands. 

“ ‘La belle Stuart !’ ” she said, “I shall go down to 
History as that — just that.” 

I looked at her and smiled serenely. “And I,” I 
said, “shall not go down to History.” 
































THE GENTLE ART OF MAKING ENEMIES 



CHAPTER VIII 


THE GENTLE ART OF MAKING ENEMIES 

“Strange love they give you, love disloyal.” — Swinburne. 

“We, too, are friends to loyalty. We love 

The King. . . . 

And him we serve 

Truly and with delight, who leaves us free. 

We are 

True to the death. 

Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love 

Of kings, between your loyalty and ours.” 

Cowper. 

The Duchess was true to her word, and the King 
(“whose word no man relied on!”) to his — Her Grace 
and the great bronze cloak arrived at my door simul- 
taneously, to the immense amusement of the lovely lady 
of the Bedchamber! 

The gentleman who carried it happened to be none 
other than my Lord Arran ; Charles, true Stuart, 
made anybody useful who came to hand, and the 
sight of his lordship as messenger, standing meekly 
outside my almost invisible little portal, was too 
much for the old Frances of the sixties, whose giggles 
had so irritated the Comte de Gramont. Arran, very 
splendid in dark green velvet with a crimson sash, 
bearing the cloak somewhat gingerly on his arm, the 
Duchess in a third mourning gown of grey taffeta 
sprigged with black and white, stood outside in 
mutual amusement when I myself raised my unob- 
trusive portcullis, I being decently if severely attired 
in a morning dress of this lavender woollen of the 
139 


140 My Two Kings 

cut of the grey lawn washed at Mrs. Gwyn’s house in 
Windsor. 

His lordship was, in the words of Pepys, “a very 
plain man,” but a witty one, a great friend of Mon- 
mouth’s though a decade his senior, the irresponsible 
nephew by marriage of the still more irresponsible 
Buckingham, a consolable widower who did not 
console himself by anything more serious than half 
a dozen love affairs at a time — a man whom I never 
really liked personally (though I did not think much 
as to whether I liked or disliked people ; it was of 
little use!) and whom I thought an unworthy son 
of that fine old lord the Duke of Ormonde, and a 
still more unworthy brother of the beloved Lord 
Ossory. 

“Enter!” I said gaily. “My dear Duchess, will you 
be the great Eliza, and shall my lord spread his cloak 
for you to tread on? Oh, ’tis His Majesty’s? Thank 
you, sir, for bringing it, and we will not trample it 
underfoot yet. Come you within too. I want to show 
you what nest Mr. Chiffinch hath built for me. Is he 
not clever?” 

“Chiffinch is no chaffinch,” said Arran; “only a very 
nimble black spider. He spins parlours for fair ladies 
to walk into.” I shook my head and began to make 
some allusion to my respectable years, but forbore 
suddenly (I think Frances noticed how suddenly!) re- 
membering what a “friend” Arran was of Mrs. Crofts, 
born in 1637. 

“Madame Stuart is becoming so discreet,” she said. 
“She hath caught it already from the atmosphere of 
her new home. Only at Whitehall these few nights, 
and already she thinks of something to say — and doth 
not say it !” 

“And,” I amended, “is consequently reduced to 
silence because she can think of nothing further to say 
in its place! Now, Frances, say what you will of my 


The Gentle Art of Making Enemies 141 

plenishings so long as you admire whole-heartedly my 
tapestry couch and its pillows.” 

Arran put a critical glass to his eye. “Rat me, 
but I know that settee !” he said, and stopped. 

“Now it’s my lord who is approaching discretion!” 
I cried. “If we are every one so careful we shall be 
all reduced to silence, opening our mouths and shut- 
ting them again like the King’s carps. Is it truly 
the method of the Court? I’m new; I must be in- 
formed. Lord Arran, is it the mode to recognise — a 
couch, shall we say, and then refuse it a salute? I’m 
sure it is an old friend of yours. You sat on it last 
somewhere in the Cockpit. ’Tis my young cousin 
Monmouth’s.” 

I realised that the best thing, once for all, was to 
put forward our relationship and emphasise the differ- 
ence in age between the Duke and me. I must stand 
on that footing, or life would not go forward on the 
lines I planned. Monmouth was, after all, too bad a 
boy to have running in and out of one’s rooms unless 
he came definitely and publicly as my “young cousin.” 
Arran’s glass turned slowly upon me in the cold morn- 
ing light. My hair was a la negligence under my 
muslin cap, my gown, as I have said, puritanically 
simple. I smiled! 

Frances, a charming grey slenderness, sat herself 
down on the apricot cover among the tinted cushions. 
“One ivory,” she commented, “then my brocade will 
strike no wrong note. These wide low windows, my 
dear! — why, you have a panorama of the river, and 
can watch and see who lands at the Privy Stairs !” 

“Madame la Duchesse always wants to know too 
much,” I explained to Arran. “Pray think of me, 
watching ever to see whose barge came by, what hooded 
or cloaked figure landed !” 

“There goes one I can name, at least,” said Arran. 
“That barge used to stop at the Stairs more frequently 


142 My Two Kings 

in old days, udsbud! What does ‘The Lady’ here 
now?” 

Frances Richmond raised herself, peeped out too, 
looked, and laughed aloud. “You forget her Grace 
of Cleveland hath a married daughter to settle also 
in Whitehall, in her mother’s old rooms. That little 
baggage Anne Dacre, the chit! She comes to see to 
that, I’ll warrant.” 

“Ah,” said his lordship, dropping his glass with a 
chink on his gold buttons. “ ‘Baggage’ and ‘chit’? 
dear Duchess, but how else? Think of her mother, 
and all her three fathers!” Country mouse, as I 
was, even I knew how Barbara’s first child had been 
claimed by her husband, Lord Chesterfield, and the 
King. All the same. . . . 

“ Think of them,” I said. “But, perhaps, since 
we are in Whitehall, we’ll go on being wise, and not 
speak of them?” I had delivered my little thrust. 
These rooms of mine should be gossiped in — by those 
I chose to let gossip ; no others. I had to decide, 
that was plain. Again Lord Arran saw the line I 
had chosen ; he gave a very charming smile and bowed, 
taking the rebuke exactly as I wished. The Duchess, 
licensed libertine with her tongue, sat down again on 
the couch, leant back, and looked from one to the 
other. I held my ground, but I laughed, and so did 
he. 

“Oh, Madame,” he remarked. “I see you come to 
reform the Court.” 

“You may see that the Court does not come to 
undo me!” I said, and this time sharply enough. “Or, 
if you will, that while eating my master’s bread and 
salt I do not play Sir John Coventry.” 

History does not condemn this worthy, who rose 
in the House of Commons to be witty at his Sovereign’s 
expense, and had his nose slit for him, deservedly in 
my eyes, by Monmouth’s men ; but it cries out on Mon- 


The Gentle Art of Making Enemies 143 

mouth, as I did not, and do not, as Arran his avowed 
friend would not. 

“Come, sir,” I added, “I seem to be preaching 
sermons in every sentence. Bands and gown would ill 
become me. I ask your forgiveness.” 

“It is my part to ask yours,” he said generously. 
“We all want reminding of our duty now and then, 
Madame Stuart; tongues wag hereabouts, and I was 
a fool, I should have remembered your views.” 

The blood rose under the Duchess of Richmond’s 
ceruse. “Arran,” she said, though she laughed as she 
said it, “that is a hit at me. Anything may be said 
before the girl I was once, who shared Barbara Palmer’s 

friendship and bed, eh, sir? — the woman who 

No matter. But it is not for you to throw stones 
at any one, my dear lord! And Madame Stuart shall 
pelt whom she pleases. Chiffinch has put her here? 
Aye, I know you, and the whole company of you! 
You’ve been whispering and chuckling and cocking an 
ear or an eyebrow over the newly installed lady, just 
in this place, close to the Royal apartments, and the 
maids’ rooms, and those of Chiffinch himself, and what” 
— she leaned forward and looked fearlessly at him, 
speaking as if I did not exist — “and what do you all 
say?” 

Arran’s ugly face turned slightly ruddier in colour 
at this home-thrust; as for me, I was so much in- 
terested and amused that I did not care what hap- 
pened. Of course the Duchess (as we both might have 
known) received the typical courtier’s reply. “We 
say the sun has risen on us at last,” he replied, with 
a bow to me. 

I looked out of the window at the autumn sunshine 
inlaying with patines of gold the grey water, and I 
made a little curtsey in return. “My Indian summer, 
then, my lord. But you do not say that, you say 
nothing. You would never have noticed I was here 


144 


My Two Kings 

but for my kind kinsfolk and I turned over the folds 
of the glorious bronze velvet as they lay across my 
desk. 

At that moment a new voice broke in upon us. 
Barbara Cleveland’s barge had indeed landed at the 
Privy Stairs, had indeed deposited her there, pre- 
sumably (as had been suggested) on a visit to her 
newly married daughter. What took her Grace past 
my lodgings I do not know ; I only know that she 
did come past, two or three gentlemen in attendance, 
Colonel Churchill among them, in all the splendour 
of his youthful good looks and fascination, and, the 
door of my ante-room being yet open, for the Duchess 
of Richmond’s servants were at that moment bring- 
ing me the brocade curtains, she paused and looked 
straight in. 

Whatever may be said against this lady, I have 
one word in her favour. Consistent she remained till 
the very end — beautiful, imperious, “the finest woman 
of her age,” utterly lacking in virtue as in the virtues, 
so the Duchess of Cleveland lived and died, unre- 
pentant, unchanged. That is set down by most 
writers as one of the worst traits in the character of 
one who from her earliest youth had no character; 
myself, I like her consistency, since I am not required 
to be her judge. She and Frances Richmond were 
on strange terms; her early jealousy of Frances (since 
the King without a shadow of doubt fell head over 
heels in love with her in her sixteenth or seventeenth 
year, and continued so, unavailingly, till she married 
the Duke of Richmond) being merely replaced by a 
distrust and a sensation of puzzled insecurity. Like 
me, her ladyship of Castlemaine never knew quite what 
to make of the relations between King Charles and his, 
widowed cousin. 







Charlotte Stuart 


























The Gentle Art of Making Enemies 145 

“What’s this?” was asked in her unmistakable voice, 
arrogant, impetuous, little careful as to what impres- 
sion she created — to the end, as from the beginning, 
The Lady was she who must be obeyed. She had 
married her daugter at Hampton Court while we were 
at Windsor in August, His Majesty and the Duke 
of York going over for the day. I had not seen her 
before. 

The servants, in some confusion, laid the parcels 
of silk in my entry and slipped away. Lord Arran 
was bowing his departure, Frances and I stood in 
the doorway of the saloon speeding him; outside, the 
brilliant group, in the centre of which was the Duchess 
of Cleveland, came to a standstill. Wrapped in a 
glorious cloak and hood of wine-red satin over a 
magnificently embroidered water-blue gown, her still 
splendidly handsome face heavily painted, huge 
pearls swinging at each toss of her imperial head, 
her fringed gloves struck smartly by one hand against 
the other, a high-heeled shoe tapping impatiently on 
the corridor floor — such was my first meeting with 
Grandison’s daughter. 

Frances Richmond looked up as I did, serenely, 
yet naughtily interested; she and I, modestly attired 
respectively in our lavender stuff and grey taffeta, 
seemed like Puritans compared with the gorgeousness 
outside my front door. Churchill was in full uniform, 
the other gentlemen were the young Earl of Sussex, 
her son-in-law, a gentleman of the Bedchamber to 
the King, and I think, Henry Savile, and perhaps 
Lord Suffolk. Behind all I saw the keen face of Mr. 
Chiffinch. 

To that sort of inquiry made to the air, as it were, 
half a dozen answers rise unbidden to the lips, but I 
was learning the lesson I myself had set in joke not 
an hour before — that of silence. As she did not speak 
directly to me, as I had not been presented to her, I 


146 


My Two Kings 


was not called upon to do or say anything at all. 

I remained, neither advancing nor drawing back, just 
within the shadow of the entrance. The Duchess of 
Richmond, tall, infinitely graceful, debonaire, and 
entirely mistress of herself, leant against the frame of 
the door. Her gay eyes roved over the faces of the 
men accompanying the rival Duchess, all of whom 
bowed deeply to her, and Churchill, the impossible to 
embarrass, to me. Lord Sussex did already know me, 
but was in two minds; Lord Suffolk and I were not 
acquainted; Chiffinch I had met in the corridor that 
morning early. 

Arran, with commendable promptitude and consider- 
able ingenuity, disappeared from sight ! 

“What’s ‘this , 5 Your Grace ? 55 said Frances, with 
that little backward toss of her head (“the reverse 
of a nod , 55 I used to call it when the King used it), 
“why, that depends what ‘this 5 may be. 5 Tis 55 — she 
glanced into the room behind us, where the sun 
gleamed as if through stained glass by way of the 
cornelian bowl and the gold, orange, and rose of the 
cushions — “ 5 tis James’s pretty things, or 5 tis, again, 
Charles’s roquelaure.” She smiled faintly and thought- 
fully at the heavy velvet draperies catching the light 
in turn. 

Now had not the Duchess of Cleveland fallen some- 
what from her high estate, an introduction of my 
rooms as being furnished by His Majesty and the 
young Duke would have wrecked me for ever, no 
matter how old I was — or looked! Typical Stuart 
in her recklessness, her love of mischief, her sense of 
humour, Frances yet had that extraordinary aloof- 
ness of bearing (a lonely Duchess as Charles was “a 
solitary Sovereign 55 ) and capacity for handling any 
scene whatsoever; also she always gave me the idea 
of being a looker-on, just as he did, no matter how 
active a part either was taking. This was another 


The Gentle Art of Making Enemies 147 

Stuart quality, but one which neither Monmouth nor 
the Duke of York possessed. 

Barbara Cleveland stared straight into the room 
past Frances and me, at the familiar velvet cloak, and 
laughed, just a little. “So,” she said, “further apart- 
ments for Royal use?” 

Again I remained silent, again Frances picked up 
the glove. “For this lady,” she said, quite simply, 
almost carelessly, indicating me with the merest 
gesture. This was, if unceremonious, at any rate some 
kind of presentation. I took it in the light manner 
in which it was executed — I gave a perfunctory smile 
and curtsied slightly. The Duchess of Cleveland 
turned and faced me direct (“What a beautiful woman 
you still are!” I said to myself), while the men be- 
hind her moved a little uneasily, and Churchill bowed 
again. 

“This lady?” 

“My kinswoman, and a kinswoman of the King.” 

If Frances Richmond had been a modern man, her 
answer would have been given while selecting and light- 
ing a cigarette — such a description explains the tone 
of voice in which she spoke. 

“An ennobled pensioner, then ?” This was the 
first direct piece of insolence; the glove was not tossed 
lightly on the floor, it was flicked across my face. I 
was quite ready, however. I smiled as charmingly 
as I knew how. The Test Act had removed Barbara 
from Queen Catherine’s service, she had been created 
Duchess of Cleveland only after Mrs. Gwyn had 
borne the King a son, and his fancy had been caught 
by Mademoiselle de Querouaille ; the treaty which 
Charles drew up only admitted her to the ranks of 
the duchesses upon her promising to give up Henry 
Jermyn and to “rail no more upon Mdlle. Wells and 
Mdlle. Stewart.” 

As I say, I smiled, and said, in much the same easy 


148 


My Two Kings 


tones as the Duchess of Richmond had used, “Why, 
no, Your Grace. I come to Court for the first time — 
I do not go. I have no title given me; in sooth, I 
think my own name will serve.” I saw the ready fury 
blaze up in the Duchess’s face — in myself the Stuart 
temper had leapt, burning cold as doth a spray of 
ether, but I knew perfectly well that to lose my self- 
control would be an absolutely fatal move; such wit 
as I possessed must be my only weapon, and I must 
keep my head at all costs. 

“And this wonderful name?” she asked con- 
temptuously, though it was plain one shaft had gone 
home. 

“Stuart,” lazily remarked Frances, Stuart-born her- 
self, and Stuart-married. 

There was no one present who dared scoff at that 
name, at all events ! I had had a second shaft 
fleshed for me, now I could afford to take a different 
initiative. “My cousin the Duchess of Richmond’s 
influence hath procured me the post of mistress of 
Her Majesty’s sewing-maids, hence Mr. Chiflinch hath 
set apart for me this corner of their quarters,” I 
volunteered, conversationally. “Will you not enter, 
Madame? My lodging is but just ready for com- 
pany, indeed, hardly fit yet, but ” I gave a little 

movement, half an indication to the group that I bade 
them be welcome, half a shrug of apology for short- 
comings. Barbara Cleveland measured me from top 
to toe. 

Was I “worth while,” or was I not? In the sport- 
ing parlance of to-day, I was a dark horse; I was 
obviously no new mistress, I was a recognised relation. 
If I were entirely new to polite society, it did not 
follow that my appearance at Whitehall under the 
wing of a lady of the Bedchamber, encouraged by the 
King, arranged for by Chiflinch, counted for nothing. 
Was I going to be dangerous; should I carry any 


The Gentle Art of Making Enemies 149 

weight? I could see her wondering, and the men 
behind her wondering, soaked as they were in Court 
etiquette, masked as they all could be at will, and I 
confess I never felt nearer bursting into laughter in 
anybody’s face than I did at that moment. I dared 
not catch Frances’s eye! — I knew if I did we should 
both break down, and then it would be declared war 
between us and the Duchess of Cleveland, and, in our 
turn, could we afford that? And after all, was it, not 
“worth while,” but “worth it”? 

“I am pressed for time to-day,” said Her Grace, 
with a certain change of tone. “I am on my way to 
my daughter’s apartments. When Mrs. Stuart” — she 
looked pointedly at my left hand for a wedding-ring — 
“is fairly established, I will wait on her duly.” 

“Madame Stuart, at your service,” I interpolated. 

“Ah, your husband is abroad?” — a nonchalant query 
flung over a shoulder. 

“Nay,” I replied, “my husband is dead these many 
months ; he is not travelling.” 

It would have been wiser, perhaps, to have omitted 
the end of that sentence ; the unfortunate Roger 
Palmer, Earl of Castlemaine, was running about Europe 
then, and did so from his final separation from his 
wife in 1666 until 1677, but the temptation was too 
great to resist. Frances, still leaning against the door- 
way, put a crown upon the indiscretion. 

“Husbands are best away,” she said, not as cleverly 
as she might have done. 

The late Lady Castlemaine wheeled upon her in an 
instant. “Sure, you find it so, Duchess !” she said, and 
laughed outright. 

At this juncture I frankly admit my acquaintance 
with The Lady of Clarendon’s Memoirs was like to 
have begun and ended in a single day, but a door 
farther along the corridor opened, and there came 
towards us His Grace the Duke of York, with only 


150 


My Two Kings 


a page in attendance. Churchill (in his service) still 
patiently immovable in waiting on Lady Castlemaine’s 
humour, broke the spell, and moved forward to meet 
his master. 

Of the same height as Monmouth, say, an inch or 
so less than the King’s, his light brown 1 peruke 
curling over a handsome suit of deep sea-blue cloth 
with a gold-worked sword-belt, James of York made 
an imposing figure in spite of his lack of Stuart 
grace and fascination, despite the waning of his great 
early promise of handsomeness. I have never seen 
more beautiful teeth than his — it was a sad pity he 
smiled so seldom and therefore rarely showed them! 
He had the typical Stuart feet and hands, his bones 
were on a smaller scale than his brother’s. Charles 
was deliberately ugly, but no one who looked at both 
for the first time ever wanted to look at James again. 
One was the King, and would have looked the King 
while clad in rags, making no demands upon his sub- 
jects’ recognition or the Court etiquette; the other, 
dignified in his way, was yet lacking in that quality 
of drawing the eye possessed by his elder brother, 
and notably by Monmouth, who was not dignified at 
all! 

Fate forced me into a position at the Restoration 
Court, in which, as I have said, intimacy and friend- 
ship with the Duke of York were impossible, even 
had I been of the type of woman he liked; the little 
part I had to play put me outside all possible sym- 
pathy with or from him; that I see now more plainly 
than I saw it then, and I regret it to-day far more 
deeply than I did in the past. Charles and Mon- 
mouth filled my world. They fill it still, but there 
is room for the misunderstood brother and uncle 

1 One cannot help remarking that his perukes varied in colour, 
according to his portraits, nearly as often as did the wigs of his 
great-grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots. 


The Gentle Art of Making Enemies 151 

whose very atmosphere was that of unpopularity, 
whose temperament did not in the least fit in with 
these gay days, whose children and whose mistresses 
(except Mrs. Sedley) turned against him, whose 
advances were impertinently flouted, not politely 
resisted, by chits of maids-of-honour. The world 
went uphill with James of York — I might have under- 
stood him better, I wish I had. He never tried to 
understand me, but why should he have done so ? 
There was I, tool (presumably) of his brother and 
his secretly loathed nephew, between whom and him- 
self the breaking-point was soon after reached in the 
sordid rivalry over worthless Mrs. Kirke, that girl 
with her nun’s face and her utterly evil life. Women 
— women — women! The vicious were under my feet 
wherever I turned, wearying me past bearing, and 
indeed, for all the glamour cast over them by modern 
writers, offering no inducements to me to follow in their 
footsteps. 

Already Court difficulties — James suffered from them 
too ! — pressed upon me ; as for the Duchess of Cleve- 
land, bad temper had carried her on its crest too long 
to be abandoned. 

Frances Richmond still leant against the doorway 
and went on laughing! 

The men stood aside — the Duke looked at us two, 
we curtsied, Lady Castlemaine held out a careless hand 
for him to kiss as though she were a queen herself, her 
great pearls swaying in her ears. 

James saluted the extended hand, I was interested 
to see, as carelessly as it was proffered, the lady began 
to speak and checked herself, seeing him turn to 
Frances and me without a word to her, good friends 
outwardly as they still remained. Not for the first 
time did I wish that Chiffinch had managed to find me 
a nook or corner not quite so near his Highness’s part 
of the palace! 


152 


My Two Kings 


“Ah, sir,” said Frances lightly, “you behold us 
settling — or unsettling? — Madame Stuart in her place. 
I trust she is a quiet and peaceful neighbour?” 
Frances’s championship was not always conducted on 
the smoothest lines for the championed, as I was learn- 
ing. I caught Churchill’s amused eye over the Duke’s 
shoulder. 

“I have heard nothing of Madame Stuart since she 
occupied these rooms,” said the Duke, heavily and 
literally. I curtsied again. 

“I trust, Highness, that I am neither audible nor 
warlike,” I said, feeling as I did so that I had become 
infected with some of his dullness of expression. 

“I advise peace,” he said looking at me coldly. “You 
will find that line the best to take. Rebellion hurts 
most those that rebel.” 

Now why in the name of all we believed in did he 
say that to me? I felt my eyes opening wider and 
wider. 

“Rebellion, sir?” I asked. “But I am His Majesty’s 
most obedient slave.” 

The Duchess of Cleveland laughed shortly. “You 
see Mrs. — Madame Stuart’s role?” she cried. “ Now 
we understand. Charles’s bondswoman!” 

I doubt if I ever felt more angry, yet at the same 
time through my icy wrath ran a streak of warm 
enthusiasm and satisfaction. Before several witnesses, 
all unintentionally, this woman who never knew what 
loyalty meant, stamped me as loyal. 

“Aye, sir,” I went on, addressing myself to the 
Duke as if he had spoken. “Bound by gratitude, 
service, and devotion, entirely, now and always 
at the King’s orders. Loyalists don’t expect free- 
dom.” 

Just for once James of York’s sombre gaze an- 
swered mine with sympathy. “Those who serve 
His Majesty are not free,” he remarked ruminatively, 


The Gentle Art of Making Enemies 153 

the light dying out as he thought (I could guess) of 
his own position. The Duchess of Cleveland laughed 
once more. 

“Slave to the King!” she cried; “never your 
own again ; you cannot even call your soul your 
own !” 

“Your Grace’s pardon,” I answered; “can I 

notr 


I seem always careful to represent myself in these 
memoirs as having the last word. Indubitably I had 
it on many occasions ; I am also convinced that I was 
a fool to win such engagements. “Another such victory 
and I am undone” — yes, Barbara had far too much 
power still with Charles for me not to risk everything 
in coming into conflict with her. Once more alone I 
sat by my window, white-faced, wondering if I had 
not ruined myself at the outset by my sharp tongue. 
But — and there again I wish to drive home my point 
— I had not done so, for His Majesty, if ever he knew 
of the affair, cared nothing. Barbara quarrelled with 
everybody, every day, himself included! — and besides, 
forgot my existence half an hour later. I did myself 
more harm with the Duke of York than any one, per- 
haps, though he outwardly agreed with me, since I 
showed him I was afraid of nobody, and could dare 
the King’s still powerful favourite. A meek nonentity, I 
had been pardoned, overlooked, taken into favour at 
St. James’s when remembered! I was never denied 
there, and, as I will relate, went at times to wait on 
Mary of Modena, and would certainly have seen far 
more of her and the Ladies Mary and Anne had it not 
been for his Highness. Even if Monmouth came and 
went as he pleased, in spite of the Needham scandal, 
until the definite break in the relations between his 
uncle and himself over Moll Kirke, which ensued during 


154 


My Two Kings 


the next year, it did not follow that a female partisan 
of Monmouth was welcome. 

But though the Duchess of Monmouth might dismiss 
me as harmless, and the Duchess of Cleveland be un- 
aware of my existence the next time we met, James 
of York never forgot. It took me over ten years to 
realise that he had summed up my weight, worth, and 
danger to himself — labelled me, put me away in his 
unwritten list of enemies ; that to the morning of which 
I have now spoken I owe the fact that, more than a 
decade later, a guard was set at my threshold and I 
found myself a prisoner. 


THE KING’S BONDSWOMAN 







I 4- 

























































































































CHAPTER IX 


THE KING’S BONDSWOMAN 

“Love is service — service and giving.” 

Maurice Hewlett. 

Thus my establishment at Whitehall was accom- 
plished, and for a couple of days after the encounter 
with the Duchess of Cleveland nothing of note 
occurred. On the morning of the third day, all my 
affairs being in order as far as I could arrange them, 
I sat at my desk considering my position. Chiffinch 
had kept the greatest surprise of all from me. I had 
imagined that lodgings and most of my diet (and my 
maid’s), sent from the Royal kitchens, would be the 
extent of the King’s kindness ; I had been taken to 
see the apartments of the sempstresses, and had been 
told exactly what I was to overlook, and to be re- 
responsible for 1 — in short, my small duties were ex- 
plained to me, and I had immediately made friends 
with the women, who in their turn I found equally 
anxious to please me, and at once desirous of being 
taught my lace-making, while in exchange they 
offered to do any sewing I might require. I thanked 
them ; I had my personal woman, and she having 
but little else to do beyond keeping my abode in 
order (with that I said at once I would trouble none 
of the Royal servants!), was quite capable of look- 
ing after my modest wardrobe. The £300 2 for the 

1 When the Queen stayed at Somerset House I did not accom- 
pany her; Mrs. Elizabeth Elliott was her head sempstress there. 

2 I repaid Frances this loan out of my savings before long. 

157 


158 


My Two Kings 


pearls was no more than half spent, meantime I was 
well set up in clothes and did not intend to launch out 
any further till I saw what was expected of me at 
Whitehall. Had I, for example, been required to be 
constantly with the Queen, or sent for often to St. 
James’s by the Duchess of York, was I needed 
nightly for dancing, music, or cards, my wardrobe 
must be enlarged. As a matter of fact, as I after- 
wards discovered, the King had his own ideas about 
me from the beginning, he never meant me to become 
a well-known figure at Court; I was to remain close 
at hand, more or less unnoticed, in case he needed me. 
For the rest, there was I, there was my comfortable 
little withdrawing-room, and till I was set any task 
for which he might consider me fitted, I and my 
lodgings played the part of a good listener and a 
convenient refuge, and, as a matter of fact, I was 
really in his service, and not Queen Catherine’s. All 
this revealed itself slowly. 

But that morning Chiffinch had called early, and I 
had received him in my undress, a simple loose 
“night gown” of purple lutestring bordered with 
fur — the autumn winds blew shrewdly off the river 
already. 

I can honestly say I do not know who was the 
most surprised, myself, or Chiffinch because I was sur- 
prised! He informed me in a perfectly matter-of- 
fact manner, that I was to be allowed £200 a year in 
addition to my lodging and food. My exclamation 
at this brought a fleeting smile to the stern, dark 
face. 

“My good man!” I cried, lifting and dropping my 
hands; “but this is too much! And for what doth 
His Majesty pay me? Let us be plain; I shall be 
able to see my way — and his — better.” 

Chiffinch moved a little in his seat and turned over 
the sheaf of papers in his hand. “Madame,” he said, 


The King's Bondswoman 


159 


“these are the King’s instructions. ‘Prepare a 
lodging for Madame Stuart my kinswoman, make 
arrangements for her supervision of the Queen’s 
sempstresses, pay her until further notice according 
to our Royal will, the sum of £200 per annum in 
quarterly instalments.’ His Majesty added, when he 
gave me my instructions, ‘You know the lady — good. 
You understand she must be lodged as befits a gentle- 
woman, but she is not of extravagant tastes, and I 
wish her to be conveniently lodged’ — the King dismissed, 
at this point, one or two other sets of rooms possible 
to be allotted to you,” added the Keeper of the King’s 
Closet, “they were farther afield, though more com- 
modious.” 

“But,” I said, “these are amply large, most 
comfortable ; you, Mr. Chiffinch, have fitted them 
up for me in a delightful manner” (he bowed in 
silence). “My duties seem but nominal, and I 
really fail to see how I can earn one tithe of such a 
salary !” 

“Consider it a pension, then. And no life, however 
quietly lived, in this place, can be anything but fairly 
costly,” answered Chiffinch in a business-like tone. 
“You may suddenly find expenses cropping up which 
you do not at present foresee. Pardon me, Madame, 
but you are new to Whitehall?” 

I laughed, and he smiled slightly again. “As new 
as could be!” I said. “I had never attended their 
Majesties’ Court before this last summer — think of it! 
I am a countrywoman, or have been. But I am learn- 
ing the ways of the town, I trust, yet I still wonder 
at the King’s kindness to me.” 

Chiffinch rose. “I have served His Majesty long,” 
he said, “and I hope to serve him longer” — here his 
face grew grave, we all knew that a year or so before 
Charles’s health had given cause for deep anxiety — 
“yet not even I, who am supposed to wonder at 


160 My Two Kings 

nothing, have ceased to wonder at my master’s kind- 
ness.” 

“Mr. Chiffinch,” I replied, my voice dropping ever 
so little, “if you still wonder, who know him so well, 
I am content to go on wondering. But I must thank 
him, and that is not easily done, as I have already 
found out.” 

“Do not use words, Madame,” he replied, taking my 
hand and bending over it in farewell. 

“Why, what then?” I asked him. 

“Deeds,” said William Chiffinch, and went out. 


“All very well,” I remarked to myself, returning 
to my chamber to have my hair dressed and my 
lavender gown laced, “All very well ; but what 
deeds ? I suppose Time — or the King — will 
show!” 

Hardly was I fully equipped than one came again 
to my outer door, a Royal page. “Would Madame 
Stuart receive His Majesty in ten minutes?” 

So Charles came for the first time to the apartments 
he had given his pensioner. 


He was quite unattended, save for the handsome 
tall boy who had brought the message, and who, at 
a word from him, left the ante-room, closing the 
outer door softly behind him; and Charles, with his 
lithe, swift, yet unhurried stride crossed the room to 
the fireplace, where burned a small cheerful blaze, and 
leant an elbow above it. He was carelessly, almost 
shabbily attired in a very dark maroon suit lined 
and faced with black (he was no dandy), and as I 
looked at him I thought how extraordinarily plain a 
man he was, yet how attractive in a sort of whimsical 
un-selfconsciousness, how little he laboured the 


The King's Bondswoman 


161 


point of being a king, yet how unmistakably he was 
one, how his heavy features, swarthy skin, large 
bones, and bad dressing ought to have militated 
against any pleasure his appearance gave the on- 
looker. And yet that tall figure, with the loose-limbed 
easy bearing, the perfect feet and hands, the bright 
all-seeing eyes, the fine teeth — above everything, the 
quite indescribable Stuart quality of personality — 
made the men who usually surrounded him look like 
vulgar garish puppets, and this very uncomeliness 
seem a beauty in itself. At his Court we worshipped 
beauty with true pagan fervour; the ill-looking were 
criticised as soundly as the ill-doing, the writers of 
the day fell into ludicrous despair over their hideous 
king, the portrait painters caricatured him, laboured 
over his “rule-defying profile,” and forgot to show 
the wit and sense of humour behind the deep-set 
eyes, the brain behind the unlovely forehead, the 
charm of the smile that transformed the cynical 
lips. 

Charles’s appearance has been distorted on canvas 
as much as his character on paper. Another decep- 
tive type of writing has made him out the irresistible 
seducer, the ugly man whose very ugliness has a 
wicked attraction. This I can understand, but it was 
never that which struck me most. And perhaps, be- 
cause of it, my affection for and appreciation of him 
was a clearer-sighted, simpler emotion than that of 
most people. 

I loved him because I liked him! 

I made neither god nor devil of Charles II ; to me 
he was a man and a King of many faults, and some 
complexity not only of character and action but of 
looks ! but always, from the first, the man worthy 
of love, the King worthy of service. I wonder what 
I should have done if he had set me a task which 
entailed the sacrifice of all I held to be right and 


162 My Two Kings 

honourable? That is the hardest of all hard questions 
for a Royalist. 

I moved forward one of Monmouth’s chairs, with 
the King’s own cypher and crown on the back. He 
glanced at it and laughed. 

“Yes, Sire,” I said, “I offer you your own chair, 
in your own room, under your own roof !” 

“Why, as to that,” he replied, as he took it, “the 
roof is mine, but the room is yours, cousin, and so 
is the chair — perhaps I must continue the owner of 
these” — he touched the carved and gilded emblems 
of his kingship. He leaned an elbow on the arm, 
propped his left chin in one palm, and looked up at 
me under his bushy brows, I standing where he 
had stood before, a foot on the hearth-stone, three 
fingers on the high mantelshelf. We smiled at each 
other. 

The dress of that day was, I always maintain, a 
more becoming one for men than for women. 1 Yet 
if one had a passable figure and enough hair, the 
massed curls at each side of the head and the longer 
ones pendent on the shoulder, the straight lines of 
the corsage with the pretty fussiness of the turned- 
back sleeves revealing lace and lawn, the full skirts 
caught up at each side pannier-wise — short in those 
days, a fashion set by the Queen to exhibit a tiny 
foot — were capable of sufficiently charming inter- 
pretation. I was never at my best in severest attire, 
full dress meant for me the fullness of such beauty as 
I had; but I recollect that lavender stuff gown as 
an attractive one, and I wore that day, I remember, 
as did the good housewifely dames in private, a lawn 
and lace apron, and, over my curls, a little cap to 

i Of course most people are aware that the loose flowing drap- 
eries seen in nearly all the female portraits of the time formed a 
kind of uniform imposed upon ladies by custom, and were unlike 
what was really worn, especially during the daytime. 


The King's Bondswoman 


163 


match. My discreet role should be emphasised; such 
was my intention. 

He looked me up and down as closely as my Lady 
Castlemaine had done, but in a very different manner. 

“Already at your duties?” he questioned. “How 
unlike our family!” 

“Already at my play,” I retorted, “how can you 
call mine duties? I go and see those good souls, and 
I admire their work, and I suggest this and am taught 
that — oh, they are teaching me my trade, I warrant 
you! — and we part excellent friends, all of us won- 
dering of what use I am.” And I smiled again in 
the meditative way I had caught from Charles and 
Frances. 

“Well, well, ’tis for me to decide,” remarked my 
Sovereign. 

“Indeed you have decided, Your Majesty,” I said 
earnestly. “Decided to make a place for me to fill, 
and to pay me a heavy salary for it — yes, let me 
speak.” I sat down on the low stool that matched 
the couch and held out both my hands towards him. 
“Sire, you may command me anything, but you shall 
not forbid me to render you decent thanks ! Yourself, 
the Duchess of Richmond, the Duke of Monmouth” — 
I looked round the room as I spoke — “kind — kind — 
kind — all of you, and for nothing.” 

“Mistress Stuart,” said the King, leaning forward 
in the high-backed chair, “let me ask you this: ‘Why 
not?’ Wait a little before you thank us, before you 
say we are kind. We have taken charge of you — I 
do not think we ever thought of asking your permis- 
sion! — we have engaged your present and future, and 
we see you have a couple of rooms, a gown or two to 
your back, and we give you our Royal word that 
you shall have an adequate recompense for your 
services!” Up went the witty eyebrows. “Now, ask 
my courtiers and my servants, and — and others, if 


164 


My Two Kings 


they can ever be sure of getting their money regu- 
larly? They’ll tell you they can’t be sure of getting 
it irregularly. They’ll shrug, and add, 4 You know 
Charles — his way? He pays, sometimes, when he can, 
and sometimes when he can he does not, he pays some- 
body else!’ I gave you no rooms, my trusty Will 
cut you up a corridor and — yes, he’s cut it up well. 
Will should have been a carpenter. Instead, he deals 
with the wooden heads of my courtiers for me. That 
boy of mine gave you some furniture he didn’t want; 
I am sure he told you so ! Frances looked you out 
some ancient curtains — aye, very pretty; all Frances’s 
household gear is pretty — and none too new. I, too 
late in the day, bade Arran bring you some of my 
old clothes ! By the way, what have you done with 
that cloak?” 

“Sire,” I answered, “my woman is removing (very 
carefully) the collar, and that will be kept safely ; 
the rest makes something of a square and will be 
thrown over yonder table at times, but I do not wish 
to employ it often.” 

“Why not?” queried Charles. 

“Sire,” I said again, and very seriously, “forgive 
me, but your cloak must remain a cloak. When I 
die I am going to be buried in it; that is, if Your 
Majesty does not mind?” 

Charles leant back and burst out laughing. “My 
Majesty minds very much!” he said. “Oh, not about 
the cloak but your dying. I hope you will live to 
wear out a dozen such first!” I smiled and shook my 
head. 

“ ’Tis only a foolish notion,” I answered, “but if 
you forgive me, no one has any right to forbid it.” 


Nor had they. 

If there comes a time when the half-ruinous Abbey 


The King's Bondswoman 


165 


Church of St. Alban is restored and the pavement 
taken up, they may find beneath a plain slab a small 
figure, wrapped in a man’s crumbling bronze velvet 
roquelaure; upon the breast will lie a packet with 
two curls of hair, one silky dark brown, the other 
dense black streaked with white, and in one of the 
skeleton hands will be clasped a little gold and dia- 
mond seal with a cairngorm stone. So, if I rise at 
the End of All in my body, I shall rise clad in his 
cloak, with his hair and his son’s hair on my heart, 
and in my fingers the little seal that closed his last 
letter to me, the letter I never had, and the last he 
wrote on earth. 

And if I rise not thus, why, what matters it? If 
I do not meet King Charles in the next world, then 
all my life with him goes for nothing at all — my devo- 
tion, my gratitude, my humble affection, my broken 
heart, my unbroken loyalty. I talk much of what 
I gave him; but do I fail to talk of what he gave 
me? Yet I do not concern myself much with these 
useless questions, and I shall lie quite quietly under 
his brown velvet, holding his brown seal, while Eng- 
land goes on with her different kings and her differing 
creeds, and await my orders. If service it still be, 
may it be service under a King of England, somewhere, 
somehow ! 


“My friend, before we bury you, we want you to 
do a little living for us first.” 

The firelight struck upward under the thick lashes, 
the black eyes that were only brown when the light 
shone through them regarded me with that lazy yet 
concentrated gaze of which his courtiers noted the 
laziness and mine saw the concentration. “ ‘Never 
look back on the past’ is one of my mottoes. ‘Never 
look forward to the future’ is what I say in public. 


166 


My Two Kings 


Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we are — buried 
in my cloak ! There we are back again at your 
funeral, fair lady! But, without jesting, it seems to 
me that there is owing to you some — h’m — happiness 
(shall I say pleasure?) in life. We might manage 
that for you. You want a holiday, eh? I do not 
express surprise at these grey locks; could you see 
your beautiful monarch without his peruke you would 
find him a grizzly old gentleman, I can tell you ! 
Oddsfish, I’d frighten you soundly without all this,” 
he pulled at the shining black curls that hung over 
his shoulders. (“Oh, Sire!” I interpolated suddenly 
and enthusiastically, “how mighty fine you’d appear 
in a white one!”) “But you’re young yet.” I shook 
my head. “Well, then, you’re old! but you have not 
found much gaiety in life. I ask no questions, I merely 
state the facts. I have not been told them; I know 
them.” 

The firelight’s reflection was suddenly eclipsed, and 
shone out again. “Now I want my people to be happy. 
They never are, because they do not know how to 
be. Not one in a million knows how, and that man, 
or that woman, is held back from happiness by some- 
thing else. 1 know how.” 

He looked from me into the fire and was silent; I 
dared say nothing. I shaded the light from my face 
with one hand and watched him. One could never 
take one’s eyes from King Charles, nor from his son 
Monmouth. They both possessed that magnetism. 
The one was constantly watched by those who seldom 
understood what they saw; the other was stared at, 
frankly, openly, almost bewilderedly, by those who were 
literally dazzled by his good looks, and blinded thereby 
to what was behind them. There was not so very 
much, but there was a good deal! — more than the 
world thought. 

“Now” — I gave a little start, the pause had been 


The King’s Bondswoman 


167 


long ! — “I want you to find my house a pleasant place. 
What are you for, Madame? Dancing, music, cards? 
You shall have them all.” 

“Dancing, Your Majesty,” I said boldly, “as often 
as you bid me — the oftener the better, I vow to you! 
That will include music; cards, if I am needed, but I 
am the poorest player, and a terrible gamester to boot. 
Excuse me if you will !” We both smiled, and he shifted 
his position a little. 

“Men?” he said. “Now there are plenty of men! 
No lady ever complains of the lack of ’em here. 
You’ve led an austere life and found it dull. Gal- 
lantry might occupy you.” He considered me with 
his tolerant understanding expression of countenance. 
“ ‘Honest gallantry’ — you take all, and give nothing ; 
that’s why it’s called honest, they inform me. Study 
men, make friends of them, make them talk — you listen 
— they tell you everything, and you tell them nothing 
in return!” 

I dropped my hand and let the fire shine as it would 
on my face. “Now, Sire, do you think that would 
amuse me?” 

“Vastly,” said Charles in his dry way. “It amuses 
me, at all events, and I am a man myself, and 
ugly and old! You do not think it would divert 
you ?” 

“Beyond measure !” I said ; “but, forgive me, I 
want more than diversion. I — want — work,” I said 
this deliberately. The King again threw himself back 
in his chair and his white teeth flashed at me in a hearty 
laugh. 

“And what did you say your name was?” he in- 
quired politely as soon as he could speak; at that we 
laughed together. 

“Nay, but I mean it,” I persisted. “Let us be 
frank, Sire; I’m too old and yet too young. I’m not 
plain enough, and assuredly I’m not pretty enough! 


168 


My Two Kings 


As for women, they like me or loathe me; generally 
they loathe me. Let me note how I proceed. I 
think I had better lead a private life. It seems 
to me that my public appearances generally end 
in my making enemies ! and that is purely 
clumsy.” 

His Majesty seemed amused at my frankness. 
“Why, you’ve had no luck with my brother James,” 
he commented, and I sighed — so that fact had made 
itself evident already ? — a pity. “But with that 
senseless son of mine — oh, I doubt not but that 
you owe some of your ‘enemies’ to him ! He sings 
your praises till I bid him begone. James my brother 
and James my son never can let well alone, and so 
some day” — he shook himself — “I’m at the shroud 
business afresh?” he suggested, and glanced slyly at 
me. 

“Ah,” I said bending forward from my seat and 
kissing the long brown fingers that hung over the arm 
of the chair; “ah, no! I have it; Your Majesty has 
left yourself none; you have condemned yourself to 
immortality, you see. But we are doing our best 
to talk of life, though we succeed but ill. After all, 
’tis only my most insignificant life. If you will but 
befriend me, you and your son, I shall get all the 
happiness I can promise myself or expect out of ex- 
istence.” 

Charles regarded me intently. “You want us for 
friends ?” he said slowly. “Now I never met a woman 
who did that before ! But if you can be a friend, 
a real friend, to James, you’ll serve him better than 
you guess, and me better than — well, than I anticipate. 
Oh, I see you want to protest. I’ll tell you no 
woman has been his friend. They all fall in love with 
him; they do it every day. You will find some morn- 
ing (or some night!) that James has carried you off 
your feet and you either adore him, or hate him. 


The King’s Bondswoman 


169 


There are women at Court who hate him worse than 

they hate ” he looked at me and added “you!” 

which was not in the least what he meant to say, as 
he and I were perfectly well aware. My mind flew 
to the magnificent Duchess of Cleveland, my junior 
by a year, perhaps less, so soundly detested, espe- 
cially now that she was on the downgrade; to the 
gorgeous Duke of Buckingham, now falling from his 
high place; to other courtiers and courtesans, good 
and bad, men and women, who had risen, and, by their 
own folly, sunk once more, in the fourteen and a half 
years that had elapsed since the King came into his 
own again. I thought of those now rising — the 
Duchess of Portsmouth, and her French influence; 
Monmouth himself, who was climbing fast and far; 
this statesman and that — and the silence endured till 
Charles patted my shoulder. 

“We shall see,” he said a trifle sardonically. “You 
virtuous women, you think yourselves so sure, you 
ladies in the thirties, you are so positive your life is 
over. Wait till you are tried! Tell me, do you know 
what temptation means?” 

“Oh,” I said very quietly, “you think Whitehall 
will turn my head? You think the Duke will become 
my lover if ever he fancies it worth while? You think, 
Sire, that I am good because I have never been asked 
to be bad — how do you know I have never been 
asked? And how do you know I am good, to begin 
with ?” 

My shoulder was patted again, very kindly. “Bless 
the child,” remarked Charles (as if he had been 
Frances!) “what does she take me for? A good 
man, that does not know a bad woman when he sees 
one? or a bad man — as I am — who knows a good 
woman by sight as soon as ever he looks at her? 
There’s much you can teach me, my dear, but I’ve 
learnt something about your sex already. (So has 


170 


My Two Kings 


James, but he wants a few more lessons.) My cousin, 
I am a king. Well, need I explain to you what that 
means to a certain class, a very large class, of women? 
I don’t blame them; but neither should you blame 
me.” 

I was on my feet, a sudden gust of anger for him, 
not against him, shaking me like the autumn winds 
outside my river windows. “May I be judged, 
Sire!” I cried with flaming cheeks, “if ever I judge 
you! Blame you? Do what you will — with others 
— against me. I’ll take all as you choose. I’ll 
accept your decisions on everything. You are my 
master.” 

He rose to his feet too and stood towering above 
me. “Ah,” he said with a note in his voice few 
people ever heard, “so that is it? The Cavalier 
spirit, the way those who followed my father served 
him. He forgot his friends — they tell me I forget 
mine. He lost his cause, his throne, his life, Charlotte 
Stuart, and the Cavaliers went into exile, disgrace, and 
poverty with his son.” 

“Why,” said I, “if that be my fate and my duty, 
I shall not complain. What you will, Sire, what you 
will!” and I drew myself up, little woman as I was, 
till I was of quite imposing stature on my high French 
heels. 

The King smiled down at me. “I shall hold you 
to your word,” he said, “though your name is Stuart! 
You are bound hand and foot in my service by your 
own wish? Wilful woman. I offer you the utmost 
gaieties of my consumedly dull Court — Lord ! it 
wearies me to death at times, my people are such 
fools. I offer you lovers, and you get behind your 
armour of habitual virtue and assumed old age, and 
are most pointedly lenient with such an outrageous 
proposal!” Again the firelight glittered in the 
deep-set eyes. “I warn you, like a wise and careful 


The King's Bondswoman 


171 


parent, against my dangerous son. You bristle all 
over in a way that suggests you already have doubts 
as to your ability to resist him.” My lips parted 
here in unrestrained merriment! “Then I threaten 
you with the fate of my father’s friends — or rather, 
I think, you threaten me! Your own son is in my 
service abroad? Good. Hath he a pair of colours? 
No? He shall have them. I’ll see the despatch 
goes. I’m dealing (for once) with my army’s affairs 
to-morrow. Nay, I’ll have no more thanks; for 
mercy’s sake do not you begin to weary me too. So 
far I have found you a change from other women, 
they don’t trouble me with thanks much; you are 
something different, after all. And now, my cousin, 
I must go — to my work or to my play, you say it 
matters not to you? No, no more it does, truly! 
But we understand each other, I think, and that’s some- 
thing.” 

“That is everything, Sire,” I said fervently, yet 
smiling so that he should not think me too serious. 
“But, Your Majesty, this one thing. I pray you do 
not set me on too high a pedestal. I have known 
temptation, I am no saint.” 

“Yes,” and the kind hand took mine — I did not 
kiss his, mine was kissed by him — “I know all about 
you, as I told you before. I know exactly the sort 
of woman you are. I’ve made suggestions to you 
to-day to hear you receive them precisely as I knew 
you would. I’ve warned you against that rapscallion 
of mine to see you protest that you have your head 
and your heart under proper control. In one thing 
only have I been surprised — aye, we are frank, and 
will remain frank to the end of this interview — I did 
not think you were prepared to be so” — he paused 
and gave his chin a little tilt sideways — “so obedient 
to me !” 

Here I risked a good deal, incurable gambler as I 


172 


My Two Kings 


was, and am. “ ‘The King’s slave,’ ” I said ; “ ‘the 
King’s bondswoman. Loyalists don’t expect free- 
dom.’ ” 

This was directly quoted from my encounter with 
the Duchess of Cleveland and the Duke of York of 
three days previously. I took it for granted (an 
excellent method in which I persevered) that Charles 
knew everything. I might anger him, as I had 
obviously angered his brother, and I was having, 
as I knew perfectly well, just one little trial of my 
strength as opposed to both of theirs. Their master 
and mine looked down into my half-defiant, half- 
frightened face with a perfectly enigmatical expres- 
sion. He may have known — or not have known, not 
knowing, he may have guessed — whatever he did, he 
certainly understood. 

“You’re a brave woman!” he remarked, making, 
I thought, the first mistake during our conver- 
sation. 

“Never believe a Stuart can be a coward,” I re- 
plied, more for the sake of replying than anything 
else. 

He shook his head. “You don’t know us yet,” he 
concluded, and turned to the door. 


I was to come to know them better, certainly, this 
Royal branch of the family of which I was born and 
into which I had wedded. I saw cowardice come to 
them, and bravery come again, and I myself have 
only been upheld by my name from poltroonery under 
a severe trial. But whatever I saw of King Charles 
I never saw in him the slightest shadow of fear. They 
say he was afraid of his women and would do any- 
thing for peace’s sake; they say he dreaded France 
and so took Louis’s pay; they say he feared death 
and the Judgment at the end, and so died in the faith 


The King's Bondswoman 


178 


he had not the courage to profess openly ; all this they 
said, and say still. 

And I say my little say, I add my testimony to the 
rest. Charles never was afraid. Neither of man nor 
woman, of enemy or friend, of the life here or the 
life to come. That is my belief ; so you have it for 
what it is worth. 

























1 


THE CHASTE NYMPH 





















CHAPTER X 


THE CHASTE NYMPH 

“Runs the blood of the old world slow? 

Where are they now who reigned of yore? 

Plaster casts in a dusty row, 

(Heathen Mythology’s such a bore!) 

Thus you smile at my classic lore, 

‘Finishing touches I love to show. 

Ah, you forget that I lived before 
With these gods I pretend to know!” 

M. N. 


The winter of 1674 was upon London. 

Rehearsals of The Masque of Calisto, the Chaste 
Nymph, were in full swing; the Duke of Monmouth 
had restored himself to favour at St. James’s by the 
simple process of behaving as if he had never been 
out of it ! It was perfectly obvious that no one could 
lead the ballet but he, and as the Duchess of York 
was absolutely determined that the play should be a 
success, Mrs. Needham was conveniently forgotten 
for the time. As the Principal Shepherd, wearing 
his own short hair (in which his father thought he 
looked “better far!”) and picturesque ragged leather 
jerkin and breeches, armed with a flower-wreathed 
crook and with a stage lamb tucked under his arm, 
Monmouth was ready once more to turn all heads 
not yet turned, and to my prejudiced eyes looked 
even more fascinating than in his usual Court splen- 
dour. 

The sewing maids’ apartments hummed ; it was 
strange how many little stray tasks Her Majesty’s 
sempstresses were called upon to perform, though the 
177 


178 


My Two Kings 


actual fancy dresses were fashioned by the Court 
tailors and mantua-makers, Master John Allan, for 
example, producing mighty fine semi-classical suits for 
the young maids-of-honour who were cast for male 
parts, tall Herietta Wentworth as Jupiter and preco- 
cious Sarah Jennings as Mercury looking especially 
well. The two young princesses, well-grown girls in 
spite of their tender years — the Lady Mary at twelve 
being fourteen at least in appearance — were charming 
in floating draperies of white and silver, and white 
and gold respectively, pearl fillets binding their curls 
and silk sandals their feet. Princess Mary was an 
adorable slim whiteness, an ideal nymph (as may be 
seen to-day in her portrait as Artemis by Sir Peter), 
while chubby Anne resembled a plump Cupid! 

Everybody went a-borrowing jewels. Conscience- 
tricken Mrs. Blagge, who thought play-acting most 
sinful, torn between her dismay at finding herself on 
what would now be called the amateur stage, and 
her devotion to the young Duchess her mistress, was 
literally blazing from head to foot. My black pearls 
and Frances’s white ones were pressed into the service 
among the contents of many other jewel-boxes; and 
indeed the York maids, a pretty set of girls (though 
Mrs. Villiers and Mrs. Sedley did not increase the 
standard of beauty!) seldom looked more fascinating. 
Mrs. Betterton coached them, and several men of 
quality danced in the ballet beside his Grace, first-rate 
dancing being a sine qua non. 

As the rehearsals were prolonged for weeks, and, 
the dresses being gaily donned as soon as they were 
ready, repairs shortly began to be called for, and my 
handmaidens were at once in request, since many of 
the rehearsals took place at Whitehall. This meant 
that we were an unusually young and light-hearted 
company, as most of the St. James’s Household seemed 
almost to live at the palace for the time being. Even 


The Chaste Nymph 


179 


the Duchess, though leading, perforce, a quiet life 
just then and debarred from Court fatigues, was 
nearly always present, a deeply interested spectator. 
Her lively Italian wit made her an excellent critic; 
the King thought it all far more amusing than most 
plays ; and Master Crowne, who had owed his chance 
to the dispute between my lords Buckingham and 
Rochester, was recompensed for his heroic endeavours 
by thus being made the fashion. 

Rochester was very amusing. 

“Poor Crowne,” he remarked to me, leaning over 
the back of my chair in a quiet corner at one of 
the earlier performances. “My partisanship has 
pitted him against Dryden — no great task, that ! But, 
Madame Stuart — and you know what virtue my pen 
can feign when it chooses! — defend me from having 
to compose a nursery version of the story of Jupiter 
and Calisto for these dear babes to play.” He 
waved an elderly benevolent hand towards the troupe 
of young men and maidens. “My nun, could you 
have so wrapped up that tale as to render it decent? 
No, nor I. Between you and me” (a whisper and a 
lifted eyebrow), “ has he? Yet there’s our prince 
of Puritans, John Evelyn, so fully satisfied, that he 
has been able to persuade Mrs. Blagge to stop pray- 
ing between some of her speeches, and our charming 
Duchess thinks all is well, even the Duke allows his 
daughters to take part without a word. ’Tis a pretty 
sight, egad. We’ve a sober gallant — but I like her 
shape — in our Baroness Jupiter, eh? And there goes 
that young villain James with a flower in his mouth, 
carrying his innocent lamb as in his own saintly 
portrait.” 

“Villain yourself, my lord!” I cried. “Who’s John 
Wilmot to go blackening any lamb’s wool? Such a 
smutty sheep as yourself ” 

Rochester laughed beside me. “Agreed, I’m past 


180 


My Two Kings 


washing. But to make Monmouth look even grey will 
need all your bleaching, I take it. Why are you so 
kind to that young man? You were always hard on 
me, my fair mistress ; hard of heart as — h’m — hard of 
hand, and I am so tame in your presence nowadays. 
I perch on your finger and sing cradle songs with 
Crowne (Zooks, but I’m a canary now!) but there, I 
can’t please you.” 

I looked up and met the sidelong glint in the wicked 
grey eyes and the seductive smile that lit the pale 
thin face. I held up a finger as if for him to alight 
on; he stooped and kissed it. “I do think I am too 
kind to you,” I said meditatively, “but you have no 
need to abuse James, good lack, 7 know him well 
enough! You’re but throwing soot down that chim- 
ney, you should look to the sweeping of your own.” 

“This is what she calls being too kind to me,” re- 
marked my lord to the ceiling. “Save me from her 
cruelty then, kind gods !” 

I gave him a little rap on the arm with my jewelled 
fan-holder. “You do not know what' cruelty is; 
we’re all far too good to you, yes, from His Majesty 
down. There is but one who does you hurt, my 
young friend, it is from him alone you should ask to 
be saved.” 

He met my grave look and was serious in an instant. 

“Not too hard a riddle to read,” he replied, bend- 
ing till his lips were close to my ear. “You know, 
oh yes, you know. Who’s going to save John Wilmot 
from Lord Rochester? Tell me.” 

I shook my head, as serious as he, but “Would you 
be saved if you could?” I asked pertinently. 

“Now, I wonder,” smiled John Wilmot Lord 
Rochester; “I wonder, now!” 


Busy as I was superintending repairs and renewals 


The Chaste Nymph 


181 


of all that fine gear, I made leisure to devote to a 
visitor. My past life, much of it spent in the North, 
yielded me a Scottish goddaughter of French ex- 
traction, a young girl of the name of Helene Pourvois. 
Of her I was very fond, and it delighted me to have 
the chance of giving her the pleasure of a few days’ 
gaiety under the Royal roof that winter; and on her 
coming to the town with her parents for a short time, 
they entrusted her to me. It was just before the 
opening night of the Masque, and London was at its 
darkest and coldest, but inside Whitehall all was 
merry-making and light, and my snug lodgings, if 
they looked upon a grey river through whirling snow, 
seemed but the cosier for the contrast. It was a 
joy to me to have a girl under my wing, to give her 
a glimpse of our gay life to which by now I felt well 
used, to make a pet of her, dress her pretty fair 
hair in the newest curls tied with Martial ribbons, to 
anticipate Christmas by a length of white sarsnet 
woven with little silken flower-wreaths, to be made 
into a dancing gown for wearing over a beautiful 
pale green satin petticoat of her own. This task my 
woman, with a little aid from the sewing-maids, found 
very much to her taste, and accomplished at exceed- 
ingly short notice. Frances Richmond walked in one 
morning unannounced, the prettiest figure in her rid- 
ing-dress, her long black velvet coat laced with silver, 
her plumed hat set jauntily at the Monmouth cock 
on her lovely head. 

“Why, my dear woman, what puppet are you dress- 
ing now?” she cried, regarding us half submerged 
in billows of millinery. Then, as I presented Helene 
to her, she said kindly: “A goddaughter? ha! as 
good as a daughter any day, with all the pleasure 
and none of the trouble, eh? Welcome, Mrs. Pourvois. 
So your forbears hailed from mv dear France? Let 
us go back there, shall we? There are times when 


182 My Two Kings 

I weary of this triste England !” and she gave a laugh- 
ing shiver. 

“For shame, Duchess !” I exclaimed, “you’re 
none so French as all that. And now poor sweet 
Madame Henriette is gone, methinks the Court of the 
Sun-King may show less light than our foggy White- 
hall, when all’s said and done. But I want this child 
to do credit to her ancestry. Come, we must ape 
Versailles. Give us your help; you have the latest 
notions at your finger-tips. ’Tis a vastly modish 
silk, is it not? — they swore it was brought over by 
the last packet. We are thinking of setting a berthe 
about the shoulders of green gauze to match the 
petticoat, under a network of these crystals — see, in 
the French style; or is that fashion past? Advise 
us.” 

Frances threw her whip and gloves on to the hearth- 
rug and entered whole-heartedly into the game. 
“There, that is the very newest,” she affirmed, with 
her head on one side. “Mademoiselle, I have a pair 
of crystal-embroidered gloves made for this dress — 
do me the honour of wearing them to-morrow night. 
No, I’ll take no denial; they are all unfitted to my 
black plumage. That green — the very shade our little 
Monmouth always affects. Have you a pair of silk 
stockings to match it, now? No, then we had better 
borrow from him!” 

“With all my heart,” said a merry voice at the 
outer door, which (so like Frances!) she had left 
unlatched. “Fifty pairs! But for whom? Let me 
in, cousin; ’tis too cold outside for a poor hind in 
rags,” and in walked the Principal Shepherd, crook 
in one hand, battered old hat in the other, his boyish 
face one mischievous smile, his gay eyes roving in- 
stantly from the Duchess and me to the new-comer. 
“Your servant, my fair lady. Is it for you her 
Grace would borrow my stockings? Sure, she’s 


The Chaste Nymph 


183 


monstrous indelicate ! Cousin Stuart, present me 
properly, and then I shall get on better with my 
lendings.” 

The impudence of him! But for such as he my 
charge was, in Northern language, quite able. She 
curtsied with a serious mouth, only her eyes laughed. 

“My lord Duke, I would need to be a centipede to 
avail myself of your fifty pairs. And if we are to deal 
with so many, of a truth there’s safety in numbers, 
and no one should blush. Her Grace did but think 
my skirts matched your hose, I take it.” 

Monmouth regarded the pretty preparations spread 
over my tables, the blossoming silks, the pale apple- 
green satin, the cobwebs of trellised crystals (dew- 
hung gossamer on a May morning), with deep interest. 
He touched the latter with an appreciative finger. 
“These clever dames have a rare taste,” he confided 
to Helene; “and as for my lady of Richmond, she 
loves dressing her friends just as she used to do her 
dolls — not so long ago. Duchess, I swear you played 
with puppets till you married, and now you come to 

help Madame Stuart play with ” (“Just as I 

said, “interpolated Frances) — “with something prettier 
than any puppet!” he went on irrepressibly. “Now, 
ladies, consult me. I was in France not long since. 
Fighting? — but I had time for other affairs, be sure, 
and I can handsomely assist you,” and his crook and 
hat kept Frances’s whip and gloves company on the 
hearthrug, at the word. 

“James,” I cried sharply, but laughing in spite of 
myself, “out with you! We cannot be plagued this 
morning; my door should have been shut” (“Then 
why was it open?” objected Monmouth!) “and you 
intrude upon women’s matters. Take your sheep to 
another fold; this is my lamb. You want nothing 
here.” 

“I am dropping to pieces,” explained James with 


184 


My Two Kings 


pathos, drawing down the corners of his impudent 
mouth like a child about to cry. “My smock falls 
off me — behold!” and he extended a firm young arm 
from which the ragged shift was indeed hanging in 
ribbons. “I came in for a stitch or two, cousin, if 
only to keep out the snow, and spare your blushes 
later. Mademoiselle says we do not blush, remember !” 
He perched himself half sitting on one corner of the 
table and swung a shapely leg in much-darned hose, 
his glance roving admiringly to the fresh face, his 
manner, if easy, yet untinged with insolence — merely 
the bearing of a light-hearted schoolboy pleased to 
meet a new playfellow! — James as always, unalterable, 
incurable, uncrushable, sure (too sure) of his welcome 
at all times and in all seasons. 

“You’ll bid me to stay,” he remarked to Mrs. 
Pourvois; “or if they cast me out, you will take pity 
on me, and sit with me in the ante-room. Leave your 
silly gown! That doth not matter.” 

“It is most important to me,” she replied quietly. 
“If I have no dress, I shall not be at the ball to- 
morrow night.” 

“If you are cruel to me you will lack a partner!” 
he cried pettishly, his under lip projecting as did 
Charles’s when vexed. She was in no wise dismayed; 
if he thought that he was going to daunt a hitherto 
unknown debutante with his august displeasure, he was 
entirely mistaken. 

“Yes, your Grace,” she said, “possibly. But as I 
should not have counted you among them in anticipa- 
tion I shall be none the poorer now,” and she dropped 
him a little reverence and returned to her finery. 

Monmouth still sat on the table-edge, a foot swing- 
ing, lips apart, intensely surprised. Frances and I by 
the window, shaking with suppressed amusement, stood 
regarding the little scene. 

“Hoity-toity,” said the Duchess softly. “The ad- 


The Chaste Nymph 


185 


mixture of Huguenot and Scottish blood makes for fire, 
it seems. Hath she not put him down fairly? James, 
my poor lad, truth will out: we only dance with you 
from pity, and not always then! You and I will sit 
staidly in a corner and comfortably quiz the giddy 
folk. Let us leave these industrious people to the 
fashioning of that all-important toilette; I bid you 
dine with me this afternoon — if you present yourself 
at my back-door in that gear my scullions will give 
you a hatful of broken meats, I don’t doubt!” and she 
took him by the arm and walked him out of my rooms. 
I heard her voice change in the corridor. “Jamie, 
Jamie, we’re not all for your whistle, silly boy. Leave 
that little maid alone, do you hear?” 

Helene Pourvois turned to me as the door shut on 
them. “I fear me I was unmannerly, but he — he 
seemed so sure of me. Is he always thus, god- 
mother?” 

“Always, generally more so,” I said with a dash 
of bitterness. “He thinks himself irresistible — well he 
may. To see him is to love him (nay, I can’t tell 
you why, but I understand it myself), and he knows 
it; he has but to ask and have, sometimes he hath 
no need to ask ! He’s very, very handsome, Helene, 
he’s rich, he’s charming, he’s the King’s son.” 

“He is a husband,” returned Helene, seriously, 
straightforwardly, with a little frown. This was so 
unlike Whitehall that I laughed. 

“Is he? Ask him! He’ll tell you he has forgotten 
whether he is or no, everybody forgets. But you re- 
member, and you’ve put him in his place. Don’t be 
sorry, my dear; I’m glad. He needs it. But I war- 
rant you that to-morrow night you will have him sueing 
ever so humbly for a dance.” 

Her face was slightly troubled. “You do not wish 
for him as a partner? the finest dancer at Court?” 
I asked. 


186 


My Two Kings 

She hesitated, smiling. “I would like it hugely,” 
she said slowly, “but I do not want him to wish for 
me.” 

“Refuse him !” I suggested. “ ’Twould be whole- 
some discipline, James doth not realise the word fi No.’ 
Teach him what it means, Helene.” 


The next night there was no rehearsal for once. 
The great Banqueting Hall was a blaze of light; it 
was a big ball. I had donned my finest gown, a pale 
grey velvet bordered with grey fur, over a petticoat 
of faint mauve satin, and I wore my pearls and had 
borrowed the Carey amethysts : a clasp, a pendant, 
pear-shaped earrings. 

Mrs. Pourvois’ white and green was most becoming, 
and the Duchess of Richmond’s embroidered gloves 
set it off rarely. She had a beautiful old single ear- 
ring, a Cavalier relic, formed of one long irregular 
table-cut diamond and several smaller, on a gold ring, 
and I made her wear this among the curls on her fore- 
head — all mighty fine. But when a laughing mischiev- 
ous page handed a box in at my door an hour or so 
before the ball, a box that, tied with green ribbons 
and addressed to my goddaughter, proved to contain 
an exquisite pair of green silk stockings with diamond 
clocks, why it had less success than it merited. We 
looked at it and at each other — h’m! 

“My dear,” I said, “this is Whitehall, remember. 
Take everything as it comes. Accept these, yes. But 
do not wear them! I think that will be a sufficient 
set-down for the donor.” 

So the pretty feet appeared in her own plain white 
hose above the high-heeled green shoes, and the 
extravagant gift lay folded as it came in its dainty 
coffer. 

At the more stately of the palace balls the first 


The Chaste Nymph 


187 


part of the evening was given over to dances in which 
the immediate Court circle took part, including such 
official visitors as might be gracing Whitehall — travel- 
ling Royalties, ambassadors, and so forth; famed 
dancers, new beauties, prominent favourites, and 
such-like minor constellations shone among the fixed 
stars at times, but the rest of the company looked 
on a while and took the floor rather later. Also the 
newer dances were introduced at the beginning of 
the evening, usually by selected exponents of the art. 
More or less in the background myself where Court 
life generally was concerned, my debut had won for 
me, rightly or wrongly, a name and fame as a dancer 
which frequently drew me out to take a share in the 
opening measures; that night I rather hoped I might 
not be required, but there was no escape. The King 
sent me a command by Mr. Sidney, and as soon as 
the ball opened that gallant was bowing before me. 
An old galliard of Elizabeth’s time had been ordered 
by the Queen. She was aware that I was familiar 
with it, indeed, we had all practised it hard, if in- 
formally, one night at Windsor, Mrs. Gwyn coaching 
us. 

Nelly herself was present, a pretty-looking figure 
in airy pink and white, with Lord Arran for partner. 
She smiled broadly and kissed her hand to Harry 
Sidney and me as we swept out from the circle of 
onlookers to our places in the centre of the shining 
floor. 

I had but time to leave Helene under the wing of 
the nearest lady — lean, lively, brilliant Katherine 
Crofts, gorgeous in red and gold — only trusting that 
wing might not be spread for flight ere I returned. 
Lord Arran was bidden to lead out Nelly; that was 
one thing to the good ! 

The music struck up. The King and his fair 
Louise, languid and rather weary-looking in bronze 


188 


My Two Kings 


velvet and emeralds, took their places ; Queen Catherine, 
more vivacious than usual in a lovely dress of silver 
and pearl embroideries, was handed forth by the 
Duke of York. (“Oh lud!” cried Nelly audibly, “he 
don’t know the steps, where will he land us all before 
we’ve done?”) Then a few more couples — but no 
Monmouth. I had no time to look for him, the old 
dance took all my attention; it was indeed a whole 
comedy that the performers had to play, “Difference 
and Reconciliation.” I had a magnificent partner; 
not for nothing was he still known as Beau Sidney, 
and the man who looked too high in the sixties was 
as sure of his successes in the seventies, and as a 
dancer always in the first rank. As a matter of fact, 
his Highness was, in modern language, our only pas- 
senger, and, I fear, had been included merely as a 
target for his brother’s ribald mirth. James of York 
was indeed the exception to the rule in that family 
of perfect dancers ; even the Queen, little as she looked 
it, was an admirable performer — she good-naturedly 
set to work to pilot him as best she might, kindly 
endeavouring to conceal her smiles. Nobody has ever 
given Catherine credit for possessing a sense of humour, 
but very little that was funny ever escaped her, as I 
always noticed, hard indeed as she sometimes found 
it to laugh, and again, hard not to do so on other 
occasions, such as this. 

In that portion of the dance where the ladies had 
to feign coldness, and retreat, shrugging disdainful 
shoulders, their backs to their pleading gallants, I 
caught sight of some one slipping belatedly through 
the crowd and drew my breath sharply — Monmouth, 
in a coat of white flowered sarsnet and breeches of 
green satin! 

I rapped out a modish little oath quite involuntarily, 
it would have seemed all too mild to the great Tudor 
Queen, but it was accepted as an artistic addition to 


The Chaste Nymph 189 

my role by Mr. Sidney, who redoubled his histrionic 
ardour. 

His fair face, with its chiselled features, was set off 
by a great golden peruke as opulent as was his Grace 
of Bucks’, and much more becoming, his lavender 
suit accorded perfectly with my grey and mauve, his 
jewels far outshone most ladies’ present, his air was 
perfection — certainly he was a cavalier to be proud 
of. He threw himself into his part with admirable 
fervour, pursued, despaired, plucked up heart again, 
pleaded in dumb show, till, for all my divided atten- 
tion, I was drawn to the very verge of laughter. “Sir, 
sir,” I whispered, “spare me. I was never so hard- 
hearted — I relent ! But my attention is perforce 
abroad to-night.” 

“That is the cruellest speech you could have made 
me !” lamented Harry Sidney, sotto voce. “Kind from 
the lips outward, but the false heart is another’s — 
even those bright eyes stray. Am I too repulsive to 
look at sometimes, Madame?” 

I brought my gaze back to his — 4 Le beau’ had not 
often to complain that his ladies looked elsewhere. 
“Pish!” I said, below my breath, “you’re as pretty 
as a picture, and you do not want me to tell you so, 
my fine man !” 

He put on an agonised expression and clapped his 
hand to his heart, the music ebbed and flowed, drew 
us apart and swept us together once more. My steps 
halted, I glanced back at him over my shoulder, sank 
almost to the floor, gave him my hand and a smile, 
and he bent over me till his curls touched my shoulder. 
“My eyes only stray on business,” I murmured ; 
“can you think they go on pleasure?” and again I 
nearly laughed outright, wondering if my whispered 
passages with this spoiled courtier had not as much 
acting in them as the artificial love-making of Royal 
Eliza’s day. 


190 


My Two Kings 


“Be wary, from prudence’s point of view do not 
roam, Madame ; ’tis not safe to-night, our great 
Admiral seems to be fairly adrift just now, he will run 
us down in a moment!” and hardly was the warning 
given than the Duke, entirely losing his way in the 
concluding movement, wandered helplessly across our 
road, turned abruptly, and collided with the couple 
ahead, cannoning off into me with such force that I 
only retained my balance by a supreme effort. My 
partner made a swift rush to my rescue and shot a 
somewhat dangerous glance at his Highness — no need 
to recall the old difference between these two men; 
only King Charles’s openly expressed intention of 
having Henry Sidney at Court forced James to tolerate 
his late rival’s presence. 

I made a quick step between them with a hurried 
apology: “My clumsiness, Highness! Forgive me, I 
was directly in your way.” (So I was, simply be- 
cause he was out of his own! but anything to avert 
an awkward incident.) A swift glance past James’s 
lowering countenance revealed the fact that the 
King’s part of the dance was also held up by His 
Majesty’s coming to a standstill, hands on hips, head 
back, to give way to a most unkind fit of laughter! 
Truly if I had poured oil on troubled waters the King 
had set it alight, unless James could be persuaded 
that his brother was laughing at me. I stooped to 
the floor, succeeded in entangling a high French heel 
in the lace of my petticoat and revealing the snare 
all in one movement. 

“See, sir, you must blame these frills and fallals, 
and excuse their wearer.” The sulky face cleared, 
the danger was averted, and I had made it plain to 
Mr. Sidney that I for one was determined to avoid 
friction with the Duke at all costs. As he led me to 
my seat again I said very low in his ear: “Thank 
you; you must remember we are neighbours, the Duke 


The Chaste Nymph 


191 


and I, our lodgings are side by side. Walls are thin, 
my friend, when enemies lie adjacent, and peace is 
far to seek. But I do think I have ruined my best 
petticoat much too cleverly.” 

“Ah, Madame, I warned you,” smiled Harry. “You 
were too far away!” 

“I was, indeed,” I replied cryptically, “yet not far 
enough.” 

I sat down on my gilded seat and looked about me. 
No Mistress Crofts, no Helene, no Monmouth. I bit 
back another exclamation — more in the Tudor manner. 
My companion leant an exquisite sleeve on the back 
of my chair and put up his glass at the passing com- 
pany. 

“I wish,” I said to myself, with an eye on his ad- 
mirable legs elegantly disposed beside my skirts, “I 
wish every man in the world were at the bottom of the 
sea, silk stockings and all!” 

The flashing company swayed about us — lovely 
women in the entrancing full dress and sunning-over 
curls of the period moved to and fro, skirts flowing, 
yet short enough in the under-petticoat to reveal 
English feet then supposed to be the prettiest in the 
world, sleeves loose and lace-ruffled, fairest setting 
for a rounded arm, pointed stomachers that made 
slenderer still a slim waist, jewels about white throats 
or slung across white shoulders, artlessly artful 
patches, the newest ceruse and pearl-powder, gold and 
brown dust for all middle-aged tresses save mine, so 
early grey. If I were unabashed by winter’s snows 
in my midsummer it was because I knew it for a family 
trait; as Frances had said — did we Stuarts not all 
go grey early? Why, even among Monmouth’s own 
crisp curls, revealed by the Principal Shepherd, I had 
pounced upon a white hair not a week back, and 
had fairly laughed him out of countenance! Frances 
herself had a faded lock in her luxuriant coiffure, 


192 


My Two Kings 


tucked out of sight, though I had urged her to be 
brave and let it be seen. . . . The white feather — was 
it that we showed so soon? . . . The thought flashed 
through my mind (a little shiver following in its wake) 
and was gone at once. 

“Madame, you must be in love, I fear!” (Oh, this 
was Mr. Sidney in my ear again !) 

“Out of it, sir, I vow,” I retorted sharply, and 
rose. “But your pardon. Out of humour, of man- 
ners, I think. I’m plaguy dull to-night, and at best 
my head cannot compete with my heels.” Neither 
could his, but it was not for me to say so ! “But I 
have missed my young guest, and she is new to 
Whitehall ways.” 

Old St. Albans was bowing on the other side of 
my chair; he had just led back Mrs. Crofts to hers. 
“Mrs. Pourvois is in good hands, Madame Stuart; our 
pretty Monmouth took her out.” I flashed a glance 
at Katherine. 

“Not to dance,” I contradicted. “They took no 
part in the past measure.” 

Mrs. Crofts laughed shrewdly and her dark eyes 
sparkled. “They went for the orange court,” she 
suggested. “Madame is” — she paused on a word that 
did not begin with an “a,” and added — “anxious?” 
She turned to the lady next her. “We seek our 
naughty boy,” she said lightly. “He hath kidnapped 
Madame Stuart’s fair charge, and, knowing him so 
well” (the black eyes returned to mine and were 
pointedly dropped), “some one ought to volunteer for 
a search party.” 

The lady addressed moved slightly with a rustle 
of Royal blue taffeta. I looked at her, and saw it 
was (of all people) Jane Middleton, Eleanor Need- 
ham’s lovely elder sister. She regarded us both none 
too pleasantly, and tossed her exquisite fair head in 
silence. Katherine Crofts laughed afresh. “We all 


The Chaste Nymph 


193 


know him so well,” she amended; “do we not? I, who 
brought him up, Madame Stuart, who continues his 
tuition, Mistress Middleton, who nowadays gives him 
sound advice, to be sure?” 

Little barbed arrows flew from that clever tongue — 
Jane had nothing to say, I determined to say nothing. 
The next dance struck up, the beauty and her at- 
tendant floated away to take part in it, Mrs. Crofts 
and Lord St. Albans once more retired to their se- 
cluded ante-room off the great hall. Mr. Sidney, still 
imperturbably smiling, made a leg and left me ! 

I was free, for a moment at least, from all those 
chattering imbeciles. I caught up my train, threaded 
my way through the crowd as nimbly as Monmouth 
had done a while since; I would search the orange 
court (one of the larger ante-chambers, decorated with 
orange trees in porcelain pots, lit with Oriental lamps 
of golden glass like larger oranges, and hung with 
yellow draperies), and then, failing in my quest, the 
smaller, most dimly lit and discreetly curtained alcoves 
around, and the galleries above. 

“ ’Tis lucky I have no daughter,” I said to myself 
grimly, “or I should need a switch. I’faith, may one 
beat a goddaughter? I’ve a mind to try. The gipsy, 
pretending she would repulse him — and James, that 
one cannot trust round the corner with a penny 
piece!” . . . 

“Godmother, you are looking for me? Here I 
am,” said a young, soft voice at my elbow, and I 
turned round upon as pretty a sight as I had viewed 
for a long time, a spring picture in truth, white and 
palest green with tiny touches of pink and violet 
and golden yellow, two youthful figures clad alike in 
these April hues — my tall fair Scottish lass, and at 
her side the slender form, erect as a lance, in all the 
bravery of his dark good looks, of his scapegrace of 
Monmouth. She was smiling collectedly, a mis- 


194 


My Two Kings 


chievous smile which showed an unexpected dimple, 
her hand resting lightly on his, he, with his lips set 
rather firmly, had his eyes bent on hers with an ex- 
pression in them that I had never before seen there, 
best to be described as one of puzzled respect, not un- 
mixed with surprise. He laid her hand in mine with 
a funny little gesture as of reluctantly restoring 
something valuable intact. Then he spoke: “Your god- 
daughter, Madame, tells me she is making no long 
stay here. I am sorry; we should be the better for 
more of such company. But Whitehall, as I know 
too well, is less the place for her than the chaste North, 
and Whitehall is the loser.” 

He bowed and left us, with the air of one shutting 
a door where no door was ! 

I needed no explanation, and she gave none; we 
met each other’s eye with understanding and a com- 
prehensive smile, the sort of smile that recapitulates 
half an hour’s conversation; and together we passed 
back into the ball-room. A disconsolate figure leaned 
against the doorpost, a very brave one, gayest of the 
gay in rose-colour, that of the gallant young soldier 
comrade of his Grace, Colonel John Churchill. I knew 
perfectly well what that long face meant. Sarah Jen- 
nings, already occupying his whole horizon, was in 
one of her wilful moods and smiled elsewhere that night, 
or smiled not at all. Suppressing my amusement I 
made some trivial remark and then presented him to 
my charge. He looked a trifle more cheerful, pulled 
himself together, and led her out for the contredanse 
just beginning. I took his place in the doorway with 
a frank sigh. 

“Oh, heartbreak !” said a soft voice beside me, 
“and how can that be, since Madame Stuart has no 
heart?” 

Rochester, slight, subtly fascinating, cool as ice, 
was at my elbow, his pale face paler than ever, his 


The Chaste Nymph 


195 


dress superb — a black velvet and silver brocade lined 
with flame-colour, a purple shoulder-knot, a sword-belt 
of silver tissue and fringes. He put up an apprising 
glass at my protegee as she moved off with handsome 
Jack Churchill. 

“Devilish pretty wench,” he said coolly, as if to 
himself. “But, Madame, my apologies are as yet 
unmade. I am only this moment come upon this en- 
chanting scene. My rascally tailor but now sent home 
my fine new coat — yes, ’tis mighty handsome; I knew 
it would please you — and I felt it wise not to appear 
in my shirt, the rest of my wardrobe being, they tell 
me, on the bailiff’s backs. I hastened the knavish snip, 
but he swore by all his gods that his Grace James 
must have a new suit he had ordered him to make 
within twenty-four hours — musty must — and, as you 
may infer, I and my commands went to the wall. I never 
pay because I cannot. James never pays because he 
can, he gives Charles’s promises to pay for him; 
and so, my lady, you see me late. A vastly taking 
suit, James’s, is it not? I should have fancied 
Her Majesty’s sempstresses were responsible for it, 
myself, it seemed to me to have had its origin in 
your part of the palace, its twin hailed thence, eh? 
Your fair charge, Madame — by the way, why was I 
not presented?” 

“I judged Colonel Churchill the wiser choice,” I re- 
marked, with my gaze fixed on the tip of my shoe. 
“He is so safe, so sedate an escort these days. In 
my town, my lord, we have the trick of reducing men 
to obedience, apparently.” 

Rochester grinned. “You’re a desperate set of fair 
tyrants in St. Albans, Madame; but do you not think 
you have me sufficiently cowed to be as trustworthy 
as your tame knave in the white and green coat? But 
he, I incline to think, has been given for ever the free- 
dom of your demesne.” 


196 


My Two Kings 

My eyes met his, almost with the clash of steel. 
“You will incline to think otherwise at my bid- 
ding,” I said levelly — he bowed, and made a little 
apologising gesture with a delicate thin hand — “and 
the Duke knows, as you do, how far he may go with 
me and mine. Come, my dear lord, come ! Do not 
always be forcing me to draw a line and to show you 
exactly where I have drawn it. And Mrs. Pourvois 
would not amuse you, Rochester ; she’s a good girl from 
the country.” 

“Not so long ago,” remarked his lordship, “you 
came from the country yourself, a good woman ! and 
I can assure your ladyship you amuse me very much !” 
We both laughed; indeed it was impossible not to, his 
tone was so quaint. 

“Neither by my great wit, my acquired Court man- 
ner, nor my imperishable beauty,” I retorted sardon- 
ically, “but by that rustic air that still hangs about 
me, then?” 

“By none of those things,” answered my lord 
with a complete change of expression. “Forgive my 
plain speaking, I love your pretty sermons, your 
warnings with uplifted finger, your grave looks ; I 
laugh, Madame, but I want to keep your friendship, 
the friendship of a decent woman. Never take it from 
me.” 

There was a little pause, he held out his hand for 
my carved ivory fan, possessed himself of it, and began 
to fan me slowly and deliberately. “You’re safe,” 
he said. “They know you and they know me ! I cannot 
blacken you and you cannot whiten me, alas, nor can 
you even turn James to grey. But do you be my ally 
as well as his and Charles’s. I’ll plague you no more. 
They will. James will wear you out and Charles will 
sell you if he gets a chance.” 

I silenced him. “See here,” I said steadily, “leave 
out the King. You know what he is to you and to 


The Chaste Nymph 


197 


the rest of you (forgive my plain speech now) ; you 
do not know what he can be to us dull pious folk. You 
know what he is not — my lover, you know James is no 
lover of mine, just as truly as you know, Lord Roches- 
ter, that you are not my lover yourself.” He tried to 
interrupt me and I stopped him. I cut short a sudden 
conventional rush of protest, a vow, a hand stretched 
to mine. “Don’t spoil it!” I said, with a little rueful 
pleading look. “Be a good friend to me.” 

He gazed curiously into my face, the same sort of 
expression that I had seen in Monmouth’s when he 
looked at my goddaughter rested an instant in his eyes. 
“By Heaven, I will!” swore John Wilmot Lord 
Rochester. 


He never was, perhaps ! but he was never my enemy. 
He went on laughing at me when I tried to help him, 
for I did try. It was not to me he wrote those ex- 
quisite verses of the lover who seeks light in his dark- 
ness from his lady’s lamp, but once, in his rarely 
serious moments, he did quote the last line to me: 

“Ah, what’s thy light the less for lighting mine?” 

He was in the outer dark for good, he was past 
help, but I liked him from the beginning and I liked 
him to the end. I never lost him except by death — 
and that’s not losing a man. 



IN LIGHTER VEIN 































i 



4 
















CHAPTER XI 


IN LIGHTER VEIN 


TO S. J. C. 


“Friend, of my infinite dreams 
Little enough endures. 

Little howe’er it seems. 

It is yours, all yours. 

Fame hath a fleeting breath — 

Hopes may be frail or fond — 

But Love shall be Love till death. 

And perhaps beyond!” 

A. C. Benson. 

The early spring of 1675 brought to the town Sophia 
Carey, my friend. 

Her husband had seen much fighting abroad, but 
during that year he quitted the service for a post 
under Government ; this brought them at once to 
London, and they were shortly established in a pretty 
house in Westminster. (Later in our lives they had 
a beautiful country villa in the village of Kensing- 
ton, close to that of “Don Dismallo,” my good Lord 
Nottingham, but not until King William and Queen 
Mary were on the throne and Kensington House be- 
came a Royal Palace. The Careys were friends of 
that King and Queen, and played no small part at 
their Court.) They were frequently at Whitehall from 
the time of their first coming to London — she, espe- 
cially, was constantly in my lodgings from the very 
beginning, and was soon on a charmingly easy footing 
with both the King and Monmouth, receiving much 
kindness from Queen Catherine. 

201 


202 


My Two Kings 


Fortune indeed smiled on me then. I used to wonder 
if I had not better sacrifice some cherished possession 
to the gods and avert their jealousy of my happiness. 
It was not necessary. Much indeed was I to lose, but 
not that friendship. 


Memories of my life at Whitehall into which you, 
Madame Carey, entered largely, are as strong as any 
others. Vignettes, the little isolated scenes, what I call 
mind-pictures, compose these, as well as longer and 
greater happenings that more nearly resemble la 
Baronne d’Aulnoy’s tales. There is one — I should 
think it took place not so very long after my es- 
tablishment in my lodgings there. A chilly evening, 
a blazing fire in the grate of my withdrawing-room, 
an idle hour for the King, and a call on me, waiting, 
already dressed, to attend in the great reception rooms, 
for some musical party, a dance, a night at cards, 
the entertaining of some foreign ambassadors — which, I 
cannot now recall. I remember His Majesty in his usual 
chair with his back more or less to the door, “at an 
angle of forty-five” from the fire, clad in his usual 
black satins, his long silk-stockinged legs out in front 
of him, his red-heeled shoes just crossed, his hands on 
the arms of his chair, somewhat sunk back altogether 
into it — a characteristic attitude. You came to see 
me not long after his arrival, and finding who was 
with me, stood protesting (I can hear you now!) in 
the ante-room, until Charles recognised your voice and 
ordered you to come in too ! 

I was seated on the other side of the fire, in mouse- 
coloured velvet, a cluster of cardinal-red and purple 
ribbons on my bodice, which was fastened down the 
front with red stone creves, garnets or cabochon 
carbuncles. In you came and sat in another high- 
backed chair between Charles and me, almost 


In Lighter Vein 


203 


opposite the fire — mine was just such a one — and 
there was Monmouth’s square padded stool between 
us. Your dress was charming, periwinkle blue silks 
with a good deal of lace round the shoulders, twisted 
about them and held up (and caught with it) by strings 
of the Carey amethysts, and you had a beautiful 
amethyst hanging from a string of pearls round your 
neck; your pretty brown hair was done rather like 
mine, but with fewer and larger curls, and none dang- 
ling on your shoulders, and there was a strand of blue 
ribbon in it and an amethyst buckle. You had purple 
velvet shoes, I mouse-colour, with red heels. We both 
had painted chicken-skin fans. (Does all this weary 
you? I love to see it!) Charles and I carried on 
the usual duel of words, knocking sparks out of each 
other like flint and steel; I was much more witty then 
than I am now. 

Hardly were we settled than in came some one 
else — that creature who, wherever he was, always got 
permission to go everywhere, Monmouth — who, on 
getting past my entry door, lost no time in coming 
forward and kneeling down, upright, on the stool 
between your chair and mine, holding on to the back 
of each chair and looking at us serenely, one after 
the other — certain of his welcome — always “the most 
pretty spark” as of old. He was wearing a foxy-red 
velvet coat, his Star embroidered on it, white knee- 
breeches and silk stockings, and black shoes with silver 
bows and heels. 

His father of course attacked him rallyingly at 
once, and asked him how he dared intrude thus? 
Monmouth characteristically replied he had come to 
pay his homage to his elders and betters. Charles 
and I were enchanted; as for you, you could not stop 
laughing. 

Charles said, “Betters, it is understood, but elders? 
to ladies ” and added, “Poor James, you’re to be pitied, 


204 


My Two Kings 


with that plain face of yours, but you always have 
tact, and that’s better than beauty any day,” and 
Monmouth just went on smiling charmingly at us and 
picked up a hand off my lap and one off yours, and 
kissed them in turn to ask our pardon. 

He did not attempt to answer back, he‘ knew he 
couldn’t, and just knelt and looked more delightful 
than ever, and you and I laughed till we were out 
of breath. Charles knew we loved him, just as he loved 
him himself, and nobody could make Monmouth cross; 
and then Charles said something else distinctly Caroline, 
and you and I pretended to put up our fans and hide 
our blushes, and Monmouth suggested mildly that of 
course we weren’t his elders, but his father was cer- 
tainly his better, only he himself claimed to be wiser, 
which made the King chuckle for about five minutes. 
(He had a way of shaking all over, silently, a trait 
I have seen inherited.) 

Of course it was not to be expected that we should 
be left thus unofficially alone for long: the faithful 
Bruce, new to his task — a very long broom that swept 
most conscientiously clean! — was shortly heard whis- 
pering with my maid outside, and entered to see if 
he were needed. 

“Dear Thomas, he won’t let me out of his sight,” 
said Charles with pretended resignation. “He is like 
a hen with a new duckling, he clucks on the bank and 
I — well, I stand head downwards and dabble in the 
mud.” 

“Sir, sir, what about tact?” cried Monmouth (and 
in the language of to-day “got a bit back”). “Are 
you standing on your head and dabbling in mud here? 
If you are, you should not say so !” 

Bruce couldn’t follow quite so fast; you and I, I 
think, followed almost too quickly, at any rate, for 
our sense of humour. I had to command my voice 
to beseech the new “King’s gentleman” to sit on 


In Lighter Vein 


205 


the floor, because he was so tall — his head nearly 
touched my ceilings (the little Chevalier de St. George 
said he was the tallest man he had ever seen, Bruce 
writes this in his own Memoirs) ; and you said it was 
“not at all suitable,” since it suggested the hen’s tak- 
ing to the water while the duckling remained perched 
on the bank. 

It was quite foolish, but it was all harmless, and 
at least we laughed innocently over it. There was 
nothing unkind in our jesting, nothing of the fault- 
finding that fills the pages of other writers, none of 
their jealousy, thank Heaven. Oh, that jealousy! 
My heart aches over it now. It poisoned life at times, 
as it poisons all life always, and very early in my 
career I met it, and took steps to avoid as much of it 
in future as I could. Between you and me, at least, 
such a thing was unknown. 


I remember, my dear Madame Carey, another occa- 
sion when you and I were in my bedroom. You and 
my woman were helping me try on a new mantua — 
such a pretty one, of dove-coloured mohair trimmed 
with narrow copper lace and fringes, and quaint fat 
coppery bows and roses, with a hood lined with pansy 
velvet, to be worn over a pansy silk gown very simply 
made in long flowing lines, but clasped with a beautiful 
big ornament of wrought gold set with square amethysts 
and sapphires. You were in a charming simar 1 of 
chestnut watered tabby, over a prune velvet dress 
trimmed with narrow bands of brown fur and heavy 
Venetian guipure of a warm ivory shade; the same 
ivory hue lined your hood. 

I had just put the new mantua on and had come 
to the conclusion that it was really rather nice but 


i A cloak with long sleeves. 


206 


My Two Kings 


that I should never be able to afford anything more 
for years , when there was a commotion in my little 
ante-room, and my maid came back giggling to say 
his Grace was without, and he was very sorry to hear 
Mistress Stuart was dressing, because, anyhow, he was 
coming in ! 

In he came on the maid’s heels, looking enchanting, 
with a scarlet cloth coat embroidered with his Star, 
and all the rest of his attire black (and a scarlet 
roquelaure flung anyhow on a chair outside). 

“Dressing? my cousin, I call that dressed /” he 
said, kissing my hand and giving it a little shake. 
“How much more is Madame going to put on?” to 
you, kissing your hand in turn and walking all round 
me to see. 

“Mighty fine! You two ladies are off on some 
mischievous errand, and I have just come to keep 
you out of it. No, it’s of no use resisting, my coach 
is below. I am going to wait on the Duchess of York, 
and you shall come too. I’ll take no denial !” — 
and we were swept off before we had time to pro- 
test, and found ourselves in the great gilded 
coach with Monmouth opposite us looking his 
naughtiest. 

“ ’Twill do my pious uncle all the good in the world 
to see you,” he chuckled; “and as for the Duchess, 
poor child, ’twill cheer her up. Sad? No, not as sad 
as you or I would be with his Highness, always with 
us — what am I saying? You will subdue the ex- 
uberance of her youthful spirits, and you may even 
succeed in making the Lady Anne talk!” 

“Not while you are there, James,” I said. “Mr. 
Dryden hath assured posterity you never say much — 
he does not know you as I do, poor man. But we 
have no audience with the Duchess, and you will find 
us penetrating no farther than the courtyard of St. 
James’s.” 


In Lighter Vein 


207 


“I’ll wager you that in half an hour from now we 
shall all be sitting on the floor playing ‘I love my love 
with an A.’ ’Tis what I am bidden there for — I am 
well known at the game,” and he looked at you more 
naughtily than ever. 

“Not only with an A,” you said, “but with all the 
other letters of the alphabet, sir,” and we all laughed, 
Monmouth remarking, “In truth one begins with an 
A, I did !” This allusion to Anna ought to have been 
rebuked, but reduced me to further mirth. 

Monmouth’s idea on arriving at St. James’s, in and 
out of which he ran as he pleased, was to lead us, by 
a hand of each, straight into the Duchess’s apart- 
ments, but we both sternly refused; I was not going 
to run the risk of a snub from cousin James of York, 
nor was I going to make Mary of Modena think us 
two feather-heads wanting in respect. I did not know 
her intimately, and you had only been presented to, 
and waited upon her once or twice. She had not been 
married for so very long, and had not yet been seen 
in public much. 

All the same, had I taken Monmouth’s wager, I 
should have lost, for we found ourselves playing the 
identical game within a few minutes of our cordial 
reception — his Highness was somewhat luckily absent 
— by the Duchess, Princess Mary and Princess 
Anne, Elizabeth Villiers, Sarah Jennings, Catherine 
Sedley, wittiest of us all — and we were none of us 
fools save little Lady Anne, who always had to be 
“helped !” — Monmouth, Lord Rochester, who was 
too dreadfully funny — he and Cathie Sedley said out- 
rageous things which were quite too much for you 
and me, and left Monmouth able to do nothing but 
throw back his head and shout with laughter! — dear 
Lord Ossory, and John Churchill — these, I think, 
completed the company. The newly married late 
maid-of-honour, Margaret Blagge, now Madame 


208 


My Two Kings 


Godolphin, came with her husband Sydney in the 
middle, and her surprised face on seeing our circle 
on the carpet set me off again — I always tried to 
shock Margaret Godolphin, and generally succeeded 
only too well. 

Pretty young Mary of Modena, with her white 
skin, rosy cheeks and lips and black hair, in process 
of slowly falling in love, a love that lasted beyond 
death, with her middle-aged husband, was delicious 
in her faltering English. She had “J,” I recollect, 
and began hesitatingly, looking at Monmouth for 
assistance. Monmouth, cross-legged beside her, I 
could hardly take my eyes from, his legs were so 
beautiful in black silk stockings, black shoes, and red 
heels. 

“I love my love with a J because his name is 
James,” and Monmouth, pretended she meant him, 
laid his hand on his heart, leapt gracefully (“all of 
a piece”) to his feet, bowed deeply, and was pulled 
down again by John Wilmot Lord Rochester, amid 
our peals of laughter and the Duchess’s laughing 
but half-puzzled outcry. Rochester, with a languish- 
ing glance interrupted, “Ah, your Highness, I hoped 
you were going to say John!” and there was more 
mirth. 

“I hate him with a J, because ” she again looked 

round appealingly. 

“Because he makes me jealous,” said Rochester 
in my ear with his eye on Mrs. Sedley, whom, as you 
know, James of York afterwards made Lady Dor- 
chester. (You recollect her saying to Mary of Orange, 
when she and William took the throne and Mary 
snubbed her at Court, “Madame, if I broke one com- 
mandment with your father, you broke another against 
him.”) 

And so it went on. It was more than amusing to 
see the by -play — John Churchill making love to Sarah 

/ 


In Lighter Vein 


209 


all the time when he thought no one was looking, 
•and Sarah tossing her fair head; Monmouth being a 
perfect child with those children the Ladies Mary 
and Anne ; Rochester pretending he was going to 
shock you and just stopping in time under my amused 
but restraining eye; Mary of Modena, as eager as the 
children to learn how to play, in her white gown and 
damask-rose-red scarf (she was always delicate, poor 
girl, and always having babies during those years — 
she once said, “They were the only five years’ happi- 
ness I ever knew, and I was having children all the 
time and lost them all, so judge of that happiness!”) 
Elizabeth Villiers, who was to betray the Lady 
Mary’s friendship for her with William III later on, 
being quietly but most effectually witty — and less 
coarse than Catherine Sedley — the Lady Mary, as 
flushed and as pretty as her young stepmother, giving 
little gasps of delighted laughter at her own attempts ; 
while the Lady Anne sat with her short fat legs stuck 
out in front of her, and smiled stolidly and said 
nothing at all! It was a joy to me to see Monmouth 
by Mary of Modena, and to note the touch of Italian 
colouring in him, from his Medici ancestry, echoing 
her Italian beauty. 

All of a sudden in came, quite informally, Charles 
himself, with Buckingham in attendance — and of 
course the inevitable Bruce — and he went off into fits 
of laughter at the sight of us. We really must have 
looked as if we were in the nursery, we ladies with 
our full silken skirts swirling round us and our curly 
heads together, the gentlemen all cross-legged, their 
magnificent perriwigs nearly to their knees. He would 
not let us get up. 

“No, no, my children, you have no notion how 
adorable you all look in so lowly a posture,” to which 
I retorted at once — I could not help it — “Sire, it is 
not so very often we are obliged to look up to you! 


210 


My Two Kings 


Your pardon, Your Majesty, it was not I who said 
this, ’twas my Lord Rochester whispered it in my 
ear.” 

“Madame,” retorted Charles, “your impertinence, 
if not your charm, is beneath my notice,” and as 
Rochester opened his mouth to speak again you and 
I, on each side of him, took him by an arm and 
simultaneously said, “Don’t say it, my dear lord!” 
and when he innocently asked, “Don’t say what?” we 
both vowed we had not a notion what he meant to 
say; but whatever it was, would he please not say it? — 
we know our John Wilmot too well. 

Here the young Bruce in the background went off 
into a boyish guffaw. “Ah, that is a gentle smile 
from my little Thomas,” remarked Charles, turning to 
the toweringly tall and still overcome Bruce. “Get 
me a cushion and I will sit down with these pretty 
ladies — unless,” he looked quizzically round, “any one 
of them will offer her poor old Sovereign a seat on 
her knee?” 

“I will,” suddenly piped up Princess Anne. “Sit 
on my lap, Uncle Charles!” spreading flat her frock 
with podgy hands — whereupon I am sorry to say 
Lord Rochester buried his face in your billowing velvet 
skirts and cried with joy! I know that when he was 
able to stop wiping his eyes, they had reversed the 
suggested order of things, Charles was enthroned on 
a cushion with his small roundabout niece perched on 
one of his knees, kicking his shin with her little high- 
heeled shoes at intervals. Buckingham, who was really 
the funniest person there, was out of humour, and 
would only bestow his gorgeous blue satins in one of the 
high-backed chairs. 

“Poor George,” said Charles, looking up at him, 
“the floor is a long way off for a respectable old 
gentleman like you,” which was cutting, as Bucking- 
ham hated to be reminded that he was two years 


In Lighter Vein 211 

Charles’s senior, nearly as much as he disliked being 
called respectable. 

Here, of course, Monmouth must needs pretend he 
was overcome with cramp, and besought all the ladies 
near him to help him up, as he felt he was growing 
respectable like George, and must leave the floor to 
such brisk youths as His Majesty, who, as everybody 
knew, had always been allured by the idea of “a lodg- 
ing on the cold ground.” I thought we were probably 
getting on thin ice again, and once more stopped 
Rochester, who in a pained voice said protestingly, 
“Madame, you have no pity ; you will not wait to hear 
what I say before you object to it! Surely you might 
know by now r that I should disappoint you by a most 
innocent remark?” 

“If you could think of one,” from Mrs. Sedley; and 
“Ah, but our dear John would be so dull in that case 
that Madame does well to stop him,” from Bucking- 
ham; to which Rochester, “Surely, no speech of mine 
can be so dull as your silence, your Grace!” and Mary 
of Modena had to make peace all round, her efforts 
being considerably hampered by Monmouth’s suggest- 
ing the reverse of what she meant to say whenever she 
paused for an English word, his brown eyes crinkled 
up as they caught hers. 

“Sir, sir,” she said, spreading her thin long hands 
apart with a delightful foreign gesture, “you are so 
bad, you make me — how is it? — tell what you call — 
lies !” 

“Oh, Highness, his Grace never taught anybody to 
tell the truth yet, so what does it matter?” “Tell 
his Grace he is good, your Highness ; that is, good-for- 
nothing;” and so on, and so on, till, “Anne, my lady 
niece, what would you think of having a King with 
only one leg? for you will have one soon!” from 
Charles; and then “Then, Your Majesty, Peter Lely 
shall paint you as Cleopatra, ‘hopping forty paces 


212 


My Two Kings 


through the public streets,’ ” cried Monmouth, and we 
were all talking at once till the Duchess gave up in 
despair. “Oh, James, I do not follow you.” 

“Leave that to us, Highness!” from you (really 
I can’t think why!) to the inextinguishable mirth of 
Charles and me, who caught each other’s eye and gave 
up all attempt at decorum forthwith. 

It is all abjectly silly, but that is what I feel our 
rollicking high spirits in those days gave us. Mon- 
mouth was not only the dissolute young man ever 
scheming for a crown, nor Charles the elderly satyr 
always in pursuit of “the female prey” — they were 
both English gentlemen, pleasant and respectful in 
their relations with their kinswomen and those whom 
they knew to be truly virtuous. The times were 
different — speech was free, the standard of morals 
low, but I believe in my heart that both Charles and 
his son 1 were simply natural men who in their heyday 
were possessed of very strong passions and abounding 
good health and vitality, practically non-moral, with 
a pretty woman beckoning at every turn ! People 
seem never to be able to cease raking in the 
mud of the Restoration Court, for the purpose of 
throwing it at Charles and Monmouth. I believe that 
Rochester’s verse was often sheer obscenity, but he 
could write the most purely exquisite gems; and he 
was funnier at times than words can say, I consider. 
The delightful mock-heroic pettishness of the follow- 
ing verse of his pleases me as much now as it did 
then : 


Then talk not of inconstancy. 

False hearts and broken vows, 

If I by miracle can be 

This live-long minute true to thee, 

’Tis all that Heaven allows. 

1 “Young, and amorous, and of a charming countenance” (Bruce 
on his friend Monmouth, fifty years later). 


In Lighter Vein 213 

(As if Heaven “allowed” anything in the matter!) 
and: 

’Tis not that I the thought disown 
Of being yours and yours alone; 

But with what face can I incline 
To damn you to be only mine? 

Well, my taste may be Caroline, but I think that 
most laughable. If Rochester never wrote anything 
more witty than the one or two letters still extant to 
his wife, he would be immortal, especially after the 
one in which he left her “a prey to her own agitations, 
among his relations, the worst of damnations” — in 
which sentiment I participate. 

Just as one has one’s prejudices, for and against, in 
this life, so I had mine then. Rochester is difficult to 
write of, because I dare to call him a friend of mine, 
and yet I was aware then, and am aware now, that he 
was a dangerous associate for any woman who wished 
to keep her name unsmirched. The perhaps even more 
witty Sedley and Dorset never attracted me at all. 
There was something about Rochester that did so, and 
I say it frankly. I remember so well the delicate, 
fragile, almost effeminate face, the cool grey eyes, the 
full underlip, the utter recklessness of speech and be- 
haviour on most occasions, the perfectly impossible 
character of much of his writing, yet, (save for that 
one error, when, a little drunk, he read me a poem 
he should not have read me, and I, with “Barbarian” 
directness, slapped his face soundly for it,) he never 
went farther in my presence than I myself permitted. 
Apart from the verses I have quoted^ his more serious 
and actually beautiful poems (rare, too rare) still 
bring tears to my eyes. I recollect how he died and 
what an edifying end he made, and how proud Bishop 
Burnet was of his share in it. Poor John Wilmot! 
We never met after his health finally broke and he 
left Court; but we corresponded, and every now and 


214 . 


My Two Kings 

then, through the miseries of a long illness and the 
painful turning over of the new leaf, flashed stray 
gleams of that humour which had endeared him to me. 
I make no boast of a conquest, but Rochester would 
have loved me in his way had I let him. As it was 
he did better: after that one slip he respected me, yet 
he knew me for what I was exactly, though he never 
guessed my true function at Whitehall. 

His contempt for Monmouth’s intellect I could ex- 
cuse, his misapprehension and misunderstanding of 
the King I laughed at in my heart — it would have 
been hopelessly dangerous to do it to his face. Yet 
in one of the last letters he wrote me he said, “Ah, 
Madame, you, I know now, had the laugh on most 
of us. You were not the King’s companion in his 
looser life, and we sinners are apt to think that a man 
is only his true self when he falls — in love or into 
his cups! I begin (too late) to ask myself if a man is 
not his real self when he shows at his best? You have 
been good enough to write very much that sort of 
sentiment about your humble servant, I know. Now, 
do you think you knew Rochester better than he did 
his King? You set both of us up, if not on pedestals, 
at least on high chairs like puppets told to behave. 
Charles and I saw each other in the kennel with the 
other swine. But I ask myself now whether we 
knew each other better than you knew us? There is 
one side — there are a dozen sides — of both of us that 
you, being what you are, could never know, thank 
God. But you were never a prude, never too cold 
(I also wonder, Madame, if you could not have done 
more for some of us sinners if you had chosen to be 
a little warmer?) Never quite a fool — as we often 
were, I certainly, because I was clever and thought 
myself cleverer still, Charles because — partly, I see 
now, because he was so on purpose. Madame, they 
tell me I am dying. I only wish they could tell me 


In Lighter Vein 


215 


I was dead! It is a plaguy business, and damned 
wearisome. But good Master Burnet worketh over 
me handsomely and tells me long tales of the joy over 
the sinner that repenteth. Lord knows I repent! — 
yet, my lady, I regret too. I would I had been a 
better man, but there are moments when I am sorry 
I was not a worse one! I missed some fine sins, I 
vow; I fancy I had no time to think of everything. 
Nay, do not throw this sheet aside in disgust. The 
impact of your fair hand on my face tingles yet, 
remember. But you have many years, if Heaven is 
kind, before you. Bethink you of the advice of a 
rake who has now only to await the good offices of 
the spade. (So low, you see, has my wit been 
brought!) Would you not be wiser to be less wise, 
Madame, or to be wise altogether? Perhaps you 
smile over this and murmur that you know best. 
Probably you do. But I wonder if that is right, 
since I do not think you ever gave any one your 
heart. And nobody, my dear friend of the brave old 
days, is ever so foolish as the man or woman who 
loves too much or does not love enough. Master 
Burnet will assure you I have forgotten all earthly 
loves, but I write this to you and not to him. Per- 
haps had I loved you I should not love you now — 
you know the ways of Cupid (do you?). At least let 
me assure you that I die faithfully attached to my 
memories of Madame Stuart. Is that not such a love 
as pleases you best both to give and receive? But 
you have no heart — or if you have, you gave it where 
I never could follow.” 


Again, poor John Wilmot. He understood so much 
that I marvel he never understood what to me was 
so plain. Yet your clever men are sometimes too clever 
to see the simplest facts. I wept when he died, and 


216 


My Two Kings 


the Court raised cynically amused eyebrows — yes, per- 
haps I should have been wiser to be less wise or wise 
altogether. Yet I should have missed that side of 
Rochester which I knew, and therefore, for myself, 
I do not regret the line I took. I have gazed long 
at his miniature by Cooper , 1 and have smiled and 
wondered whether, wherever he may be now, he is not 
even wiser than he recommended me to be. I do 
think it. 

i And his portrait by Sir Peter Lely, both Jones Collection, 
South Kensington. 


MEN CALL IT LOVE 





CHAPTER XII 


“men call it love!” 

“Others have dallied in the shade 
That dims the perfect sky, 

Others have broken vows they made — 

So why not you and I? 

And thus we played, as others do, 

With hearts tossed to and fro; 

Ah, Love, that once for all I knew! 

Ah, Love you did not know.” 

( Love d, la Mode) 

M. N. 

The Scotswoman had come to the English Court, 
leaving her wine-red hills and burnt-gold rivers, the 
air like tempered steel, the sunshine soft as heather 
honey, the North she was never again to see. But 
the Court she had come to in the alien South was that 
of the Stewards of Scotland, Westminster Abbey held 
the Stone of Scone, London might be exile, but we were 
all exiles together! 

And I loved it, from the grey and primrose dawns 
over the serious flat river (I, whose early morning eyes 
had seen blue and violet sunrises over tumbling brown 
waters), to brilliant nights when a myriad candles 
looked down on our gayest revels, and even Monmouth 
and I would have had our fill of dancing had that 
ever been possible. 

Then, when the world lay in its noontide bed, I 
would be up and away in the saddle for a gallop in 
the least known regions of Hyde Park, and come 
back to puzzle rouged ladies making their first ap- 
2X9 


220 


My Two Kings 


pearance at two o’clock dinner with a bright colour 
that owed nothing to ceruse. 

At first this could not be done. Far as I made 
my salary go, it did not compass the keep of a mount 
in town. Hirelings I could not bear the idea of, I 
had no man, no stable — I put the thought of riding 
from me with a sigh. Monmouth was Master of the 
Horse and would have lent me a dozen had he thought 
of it, but he did not think of it until some one else 
did! It was left to his friend Mr. Wharton, in the 
early days of our acquaintance, to divine my unex- 
pressed longings; and so one fine summer’s day his 
Grace, reviewing his cavalry in the Park, was con- 
siderably taken aback to find me, not in Frances’s 
or the Careys’ coach, but mounted on a beautiful 
bay filly, and soberly if smartly dished out in a rifle- 
green habit, accompanied by the redoubtable Tom on 
a magnificent chestnut hunter. I shot one glance 
at his surprised face, as, his Guards dismissed, he 
rode towards the crowd of his friends watching the 
gay scene, and his eye lit on Mr. Wharton and me 
a little apart under a tree. The tail-end of my 
glance travelled beneath my lashes to Tom’s hand- 
some fair face, at that moment one broad smile as 
his eye caught mine. “Oho !” said he under his 
breath ! 

Monmouth greeted his friends right and left, paid 
his court here and there, exchanged the usual banter 
of the day, and then cut all shorter than was his wont 
and came to join us. 

“My cousin — you ride? Why was I never told 
so?” 

I let my gaze fall. “My dear lord,” I said mis- 
chievously, “you never asked, did you?” 

“And Tom did?” (Brown eyes met blue eyes.) 

“Why, no,” said Wharton. “I offered to teach 
Madame to ride that I might have the pleasure of 


Men call it Love ! 


221 


mounting her, and sometimes, when she relents a little, 
of being allowed to act as her escort. My tuition was 
not needed, as you see, but she tolerates my presence 
at times.” 

Now Monmouth had his hands full, then if ever! — 
half a dozen fair ladies had the right (or the wrong) 
to call upon his stables and they desired it — yet it 
vexed him, transparently, that he had not thought of 
offering me a horse. For as I say, as I said ever, and 
ever shall say, my kinsmen the King and the King’s 
son were generous to me in a manner I still recall with 
surprise; it came from kindness of heart; also it was 
because of their knowledge that I never asked for 
anything, never so much as threw out a hint — I had 
made that hard-and-fast rule for the regulation of 
my conduct at Whitehall even before I came to live 
there. Had I lifted a finger, the stables of The Mewe^ 
had been at my disposal long before — I know them 
well, far better than the inside of that fine house! — 
often had I gone over them with James, admiring, 
advising, discussing. He had frequently taken my 
opinion of a horse and my counsel as to its treatment, 
yet it amused me to realise that he had set me down 
in his mind as middle-aged, fit only for drives and 
walks, while Tom, as my self-constituted gallant, 
treated me as his contemporary. 

It was diverting. I could dance with James and 
his young men all night long after a hard day afoot, 
yet I must play the dowager in a chariot or chair if 
I went otherwise abroad. I smiled to myself as I 
smoothed the glossy neck of my little thoroughbred 
with my gold-handled whip — which was a gift from 
my son — Monmouth’s eye followed the whip and his 
eyebrows went into his hair ! 

We had already had our gallop, my squire and I. 
The sun was climbing the upper heavens, the July 
day was warm and sweet with lime-flowers and mur- 


222 


My Two Kings 


murous with bees, the merry world was dispersing 
to change its more workmanlike riding-dress for the 
magnificence of dinner attire. Tom Wharton (who, 
clever enough to see that, at this hour at all events, 
compliments sounded sickly and stale, had beguiled 
my leisure with sporting talk of a sort I seldom heard 
unless I listened to the Duke of York’s hunting stories) 
saluted Monmouth as he rode up, then, with the easiest 
tact, drew alongside my palfrey, slipped an ungloved 
hand beneath mine, bared a fair head and bowed it 
low to kiss my fingers — a blue flash, as his smiling 
eyes sought mine when he lifted them, revealed eye- 
brows likewise raised! “A demain, Madame,” and he 
rode away. 


The imp of mischief in me prompted a glance at 
James of less auntly character than was my wont. 
Middle-aged I might be, but somehow my friends 
seemed always to consist of the properest men in 
society. 

I smiled at his somewhat glum face and his brow 
cleared. 

“And how long have these rides been in progress?” 
he asked. 

“Since the spring,” I said. “I am usually earlier 
afield, but not with Mr. Wharton always. Sometimes 
Lord Bruce hath pity on me, once or twice Mr. 
Thynne, and a single time Lord Arran, but that was 
a mistake.” 

Monmouth burst into a roar. “On your part?” 
he asked. 

“Why no, on his,” I said. “I went to tell him 
Mrs. Crofts could not come; and having encountered 
me while expecting her, he rode with me for half an 
hour before he could think of an excuse to quit me.” 
Monmouth shook in silence! 


Men call it Love ! 


223 


“Cousin Charlotte, I believe you find it hard ever 
to go to bed.” 

“Cousin James, I believe you find it hard ever to 
get out of it! I’m from the North, you forget. I 
must have the air.” 

“And you find, Madame, that you do not care to 
take it in solitude?” 

“Oh no, sir, ’tis these kind gentlemen who are afraid 
of being alone.” (More mischief.) 

Then I looked straight at him in the bravery of his 
Life Guards uniform. “Jamesy,” I said whimsically, 
“sure ’twould be most unsuitable if the only men about 
the Court who could put up with my company were 
your father and you!” 

He could not help smiling. “Well, now I’m here 
we’ll sit awhile, my dear lady. You’re in no haste? 
No, nor I.” He called his groom, waiting a little 
apart, swung himself gracefully from his splendid black 
charger, and the man led it a few yards away. He 
came to me and took me down with a practised hand. 
“You’re light,” he commented. “No wonder even I 
cannot tire you in dancing.” 

“Oh aye,” I said carelessly, “I’ve the bones of 
the fowls of the air — the sparrows on the housetop, 
I think. I leave Birds of Paradise to the Duchess of 
Cleveland. Let us sit, James. ’Tis sweet here, and 
a mighty convenient fallen tree.” 

“A favourite seat of yours, then?” — the Duke 
chopped an unoffending worm in two with his fine 
sword, and again eyed my golden whip. “ ‘C. from 
T.’ ” he remarked, looking at the engraving on the 
handle. “ ‘C. from I,’ ” I corrected. 

“ ‘Tom’ isn’t spelt with an I?” he asserted with the 
shadow of a question in his voice. 

I quivered with inward merriment. “No, nor is ‘Ian’ 
spelt with a T.” 

“Oh!” said Monmouth. 


224 


My Two Kings 


There was a pause; then he looked up and held, 
like Charles, an admonishing finger at me. 

“You’re a coquette !” he cried, “and you ought to 
be ashamed of yourself ! If you wanted that diver- 
sion, cousin, why the devil couldn’t you tell me so?” 

I leant back against the bole of the great lime. I 
was in a wicked humour and was enjoying myself. 

“If you will have it, James,” I said, “for the same 
excellent reason that I did not ride your horse! No, 
I’m talking folly ; I would rather be — as I am — the one 
woman of your acquaintance with whom you are not 
on terms of gallantry. No, James, no, I do not play 
the coquette with you.” 

“You leave yourself free, therefore, to find amuse- 
ment with other men.” 

“I leave myself free?” I repeated. “Of a surety. 
Where you are concerned, my lord Duke, I am and 
always shall be free.” 

This, I suppose, was not the wisest speech. 

“But why?” cried that incorrigible ‘universal 
terror of lovers and husbands’ and by word of the 
Restoration Court for tactlessness. “I believe you 
are the only lady of the Court I haven’t made love 
to!” (I bowed in ironical gratitude.) “And why 
is it, pray? Why haven’t I? — I will!” He threw 
aside his gauntlets and was off the tree-trunk where 
he sat, down on one knee by my side, a hand on his 
heart, an arm round my waist, all the old tricks I 
had seen employed so often — the smile, the upward 
glance through the long lashes, the carry-you-off-your- 
feet method of attack. I simply put one hand behind 
me and withdrew his arm, leaning still farther back 
so that the manoeuvre could not be repeated. His 
head, his handsome head, turned so often, should 
never be turned by me ; the handkerchief he was wont 
to throw lay unheeded at my feet, and the dawning 
amaze in his brown eyes was, I will frankly confess. 


Men call it Love ! 


225 


something of a sop to my vanity, always in process 
of being alternately injured and gratified it would 
seem! To be made love to by as good looking a man 
as Monmouth would have quickened the pulses of a 
saint. 

Over his dark curls my wary eye caught sight of 
his groom’s back discreetly turned on the charming 
picture we made! 

His servants must have been used to this sort of 
thing — I was amused, a trifle touched, but above all 
cross, though I did not show it. 

“Get up, my child,” I said serenely, “and behave 
yourself. Have you taken leave of your senses?” 

“Ah, be kind to me, you drive me mad!” quoth 
“my child” with a heavy sigh, trying to take my 
other hand — that too I put behind me. “Get — up,” 
I repeated in a quiet tone but with sufficient emphasis. 
He did get up, with almost laughable obedience. He 
threw himself back on the log beside me, pushed his 
hat on the back of his head, drove fine Van Dyck 
hands deep into his pockets and stretched beautiful 
long legs out in front of him. The cruel cousin, who 
only laughed at his adoration, the faithlessness of 
women, the heartlessness ! 

“Oh, boy," I said; “this from you? What have 
you ever done yourself but be faithless and cruel and 
without heart, and now I am to be battered with 
hard words because for the first time in your life a 
woman is not to be won by the lifting of your little 
finger.” 

He stretched out an eager hand in protest, and I 
picked up the finger in question and looked at it — 
so did he, like a child, and then we both burst out 
laughing; but he was not to be headed off so easily. 
Back he came! 

“Sweetest of Charlottes, you cannot repulse me; 
that isn’t possible. Have you not seen how my love 


226 


My Two Kings 


for you has grown and grown until I can keep silence 
no longer? You break my heart in two. I swear you 
are the only woman ” 

This was too much. “Stop,” I commanded 
and rose abruptly. “If you think me a fool, you 
need not make it quite so plain. This passes a jest, 
sir.” 

“Tom Wharton ” he began, unhappily for him, 

for thereupon I flashed out like lightning. 

“Lord!” I cried, “so that is it? For the first 
time you notice that your poor elderly kinswoman 
hath a little attention paid her for once, and there- 
upon you must put on these jealous airs. Fie on 
you! And then, since my complaisance in all direc- 
tions seems assumed, because I am no older than some 
of your flames, because I am still active enough to 
dance all night and be away for a gallop betimes next 
morning, because I can dare to show my own com- 
plexion in the brilliant light, you think it may be 
worth your while to try your hand on me? But it 
takes two to make love! No, I’m not going to treat 
it as an insult; you dear idot, I should not let you 
insult me. And you shall not spoil our friendship, 
James, I love you far too well for that. Love you? 
Of course I love you. I couldn’t have borne with you 
all this time if I did not!” and we both broke down, 
my severity and his annoyance, into childish laughter, 
he beginning again at once to swear he had always 
worshipped me, I again interrupting him. “No,” I 
said gravely, shaking my head. “No, you always 
cared for me, and you and your father did me the 
honour to care for me from the very first; you have 
proved it over and over again. You have loved 
other women, Jamie, adored them, tired of them, for- 
gotten them; you have not changed to me. And you 
are not going to change now, because Mr. Wharton 
is polite.” (I let a little scorn creep into my voice 


Men call it Love! 


227 


here.) “Has no man been civil to me before? My 
blind bat, it never occurred to you to notice, did 
it?” 

It was pretty to see how he blushed, and I realised 
with a little stab to my heart, how beautiful poor 
Lucy must have been when she once used to blush for 
his father long, long ago — and had so much to blush 
for — and blushed no more. 

“You make me out such a blackguard,” muttered 
her son. 

“But that is what you are,” I cried cheerfully, “you 
are a blackguard ! Do not be concerned about that. 
But remember — why, Jacques” (the old pet name of 
his boyhood), “remember, here am I at your beck and 
call for any other sport, at your bidding always, ex- 
cept in this one thing.” 

We stood together in the deserted park under the 
green translucent shade. The sweet scent of the lime- 
blossoms remains for ever in my mind in connection 
with the one occasion, on a golden afternoon of July, 
when the Duke of Monmouth offered me what he called 
love. 


I put a hand on his arm. “My friend,” I said 
softly, “you did me, as I told you, the honour to give 
me your friendship. I give mine to but few.” I paused 
“You offer me (half in sport, James, and that hurts) 
something that carries no honour with it. Are you 
a friend of any other woman but me? Of Kitty Crofts? 
Why, then, so be it. I’ll share your friendship with 
that for your old governess /” 

He smiled absently and stood looking down at me 
rather hard. When James had to use his brains the 
effort was perceptible, if not always the result. As 
a matter of fact, I had pulled him up even shorter 
than I intended. 


228 My Two Kings 

“ Are you angry? Don’t be angry, I only meant to 
make you happy !” 

I found myself looking back at him in silence, with 
wonder in my eyes that nothing would keep out. 
(To make me happy by loving me, in jest or earnest? 
Why not, he wondered in turn and with him I won- 
dered too, as a woman will marvel at the mad 
freaks of her own fancy. But so things were. Then 
he never saw, he never knew the truth? I know 
now that, to the very end of all things, he never 
knew. And That Other, did he see, he who saw every- 
thing?) 

I gave myself a little shake. “Oh no,” I smiled, 
“you only meant to amuse yourself.” 

He struck an impatient foot on the grass. “You’re 
always so ready to be sure I consider nothing but my 
own pleasure!” he cried indignantly. Oh, that was 
true, but I was not going to preach further. 

“Do you think first of all of what will please a 
woman?” I asked; but that, perhaps naturally, had no 
appeasing effect. 

“You would be displeased, truly displeased, if I 
fell in love with you?” he asked, realising just too 
late the fatal “if” in that sentence, and we both gave 
way to irresistible merriment. I hit him lightly on 
the arm with my whip and turned towards the groom 
and our horses. 

“I’ll do you this justice,” I remarked; “ ’tis half- 
past two. You’ve forgotten your dinner to make 
love to me! I’ll remember that; ’tis a feather in my 
cap, a whole group of them — the Prince of Wales’s 
feathers.” 

“If I were Prince of Wales,” he said slowly, his face 
darkening, “would you have said ‘no’ to me this 
morning?” 

“If you were King of England I should have said 
‘no,’ ” I answered in a tone devoid of every atom of 


Men call it Love ! 


229 


expression. “Come, I’m hungry if you are not. Call 
your man. Mr. Wharton will think I’ve run away 
with his mare or she with me. She’s a pretty thing, 
is not she? He hath a fine stable.” 

James caught at my hand. 

“Promise me this,” he cried, eternally boy. “Swear 
you’ll never ride one of Tom’s horses again! The 
whole of my stable is for you to choose from; nay, you 
shall have a mount of your own. To show you’ve 
forgiven me, you’ll accept it? If you will not take 
my heart, cousin Charlotte, you shall take my horse!” 


We rode home gaily through the hot July afternoon 
to the palace by the river, not hastening, in spite of 
the lateness, our reins loose, smiling and chattering 
like children, as lightly and as carelessly as if we had 
never gone through that strange little scene in Hyde 
Park. But therein lay our Stuart gift of putting 
behind us what was over — the past was the buried 
past (and a shrug of the shoulders) ! So is forgetful- 
ness a virtue or a vice as you happen to use it. We 
parted at my little door, and I watched Monmouth 
ride away to the Cockpit where several bidden friends, 
as I afterwards heard, were starving! and, as usual, 
I dallied to see him go, sitting well down on his horse, 
moving easily as a whalebone rod with every move- 
ment, the Stuart seat. When Nature made him she 
spent herself on his outer man, I know, and forgot 
till too late what should have been within. Very near 
my heart lay his beauty, aye, very near my heart he 
was altogether, but his image paused on the threshold 
of the room whereinto no one entered save I myself 
alone, where was enshrined for ever the image of 
another man. 

“Why can't I love you?” I said to myself. “Love 
you lightly and play the game of life as you and all 


230 


My Two Kings 

these men and women around me play it, as they 
would vow I play it in secret. Take what I can get 
with both hands, snatch at the flying skirts of my 
youth and renew it in yours, and taste at least a 
summer’s delight. No one asks fidelity of me else- 
where !” and I thought of King Charles’s remark : 
“We’ve all our old age before us.” So we had — and 
old age was cold and slow. 

I reached my room and threw whip and gloves on 
the bed. Then, suddenly tired, I turned to my mirror 
and let the keen light that beat up off the water show 
my face mercilessly revealed in the glass. 

“So that was your last chance,” I said, with a note 
of contempt. “Your Indian summer, as you once sug- 
gested to Arran. Monmouth will never woo you again. 
You could have held him — a week. But he would have 
despised you for an old fool ever after, whereas he 
will respect you for a sensible woman and return at 
once to his ancient estimate of you as — his father’s 
contemporary (or he’ll leave you to Tom) ! His father 
respects you too. Respect from those two men. How 
many women have it? And Charles? He’d have 
laughed, oh, laughed at it for a good joke, and would 
never have trusted you again. And he comes first — 
always the King comes first.” 

So it is the King comes first — one learns, somehow 
one learns ! 


“But if you had been King of England I should have 
said ‘no.’ ” 


THE KING MY FRIEND 














CHAPTER XIII 


THE KING MY FRIEND 

“What failings soever I may have, nothing can ever change 
in the least degree that friendship and kindness I have for 
you.” — Charles II. 

I suppose I had better confess that of all the foolish 
pranks I played at Court, my affair with Mr. Wharton 
was the maddest. I have to beg your indulgence, for 
he was an out-and-out rake, and when the time 
came, and he failed Monmouth and chose the safe 
side, I was truly thankful that our friendship was 
over. For Wharton did make love to me, with far 
more determination than any of the others ; and 
though I look back to it now with a sense of dis- 
gust, almost of shame, I realise that he made a deep 
impression upon me, that the secret attack on my 
affections was somewhat enjoyed by the besieged, and, 
I now frankly admit, was the nearest approach to 
danger of that sort which I ever encountered. He 
was a man of boundless popularity, adored by his 
people and his tenants, the fast son of a narrow, 
gloomy upbringing, witty, very handsome in an essen- 
tially jolly, cheery, English way. And he sang King 
James II out of his three kingdoms with “Lillibullero !” 
I think over that with mixed feelings. That came 
late, I am glad to remember, and in after years we 
never met again. But since I am so frank about 
others, I will not spare myself. Of all the bad men 
of the day he was supposed to be the worst. He 
was an unswerving Whig; he was through and through 
233 


23 4 


My Two Kings 


a sporting English gentleman and a perfect swords- 
man; he was dubbed “Honest Tom,” yet a Tory 
opinion of him stated that “he was the most universal 
villain that ever I knew.” 

I do not want to set myself up as one who was 
lenient enough to overlook all the evil in her friends 
of those days, and who, therefore, can excuse herself 
of any sins she committed. I should never have written 
so much about morals as I have done in this book, 
were not the times so different now, but — but — 
but they wrote (whatever they did) just as strenu- 
ously against sin, and sinners, then ! Yet the times 
are different, and life has changed, and a woman’s 
position is not what it was — nor could it ever again 
be what mine was then, I think, bearing in mind the 
sort of Court which was Charles II’s. 

But there, too, I made mistakes, and had to learn 
how to guard my way. I recall a supper at James’s 
lodgings in the Cockpit to which I was bidden, and 
to which I rather foolishly went. 

Naturally, as Mr. Wharton was an arrant Whig, I 
saw more of him outside Whitehall than in it — he of 
course was there, and several other of Monmouth’s 
friends ; among the women the still lovely Jane Middle- 
ton, Eleanor Needham’s sister, Eleanor herself, Mrs. 
Crofts, but no Duchess. I cursed my folly on my 
arrival when I found she was absent, and had never 
intended to be present; I ought to have guessed as 
much and that this was one of Monmouth’s own enter- 
tainments. It had not occurred to me that his wife 
was not the author of the invitation, a verbal one, and 
I had been careful so far never openly to associate 
myself in public with those friends of his unrecognised 
by his wife, apart from the crowd at Court, where, 
as Charles once cynically remarked, it was “no man’s 
land or every woman’s,” and all feuds private and 
public were of course laid aside. 


The King my Friend 


235 


It was at the time when Mr. Wharton was being 
most assiduous in his attentions — let me put it like 
that — and, to say truth, I fancy I did not think much, 
I accepted the message through a page of his Grace’s 
bidding me to an informal supper. 

I put on a new gown which I will venture to say was 
a pretty one, though rather in keeping with my reckless 
humour, a dark green satin brocaded all over with 
great damask-red roses overlapping each other, and 
clasped by my garnet creves, the coils of my hair at the 
back tied with a quaint knot of green and damask 
ribbons. 

Things had been just a trifle difficult in my life at 
that moment. The relations between Monmouth and 
his father had made me more anxious than ever before ; 
Monmouth had, perhaps, sought me out unusually 
often; and just then I was seeing, by accident (or 
design on some one’s part) rather less of the King. 
Politically it was a dangerous time ; there was an 
undercurrent of strain, and people were either nervous 
and tried to conceal it, or short-tempered and didn’t! 
I sought to keep out of everything, and had somewhat 
signally failed. I was not in the background as much 
as I wished — and to which, not so many years later, 
I was to return for ever, — and altogether, as I say, 
life was not easy. This means, and meant with me, 
an increase of that underlying spirit of recklessness 
which in nine cases out of ten leads a man into danger, 
and as for a woman ! 

The whole truth of the success and failure of my life 
at Whitehall may be summed up in — my age. 

Had I been younger I must have made a definite 
choice and have been a Margaret Blagge, let us say, 
or an Eleanor Needham, possibly (for how can one 
tell?) a Moll Kirke. I quote these three names some- 
what at random, but they serve for examples ; all were 
moderately young, passably good-looking, not very 


236 


My Two Kings 


clever. I could mention a dozen women I could never 
have been. I should not have had enough beauty, wits, 
temper, brains, or absolute badness to step into the 
shoes of I need not name them. 

On the other hand, had I been older, why, I should 
have been old ! and if you will consider the history 
of Charles IPs reign, you will see how small a part the 
most important of the elder women played in it . That 
is a point which has passed unnoticed by historians. 

This particular night I felt young (it goes with 
recklessness!), possibly I looked it. I made a careful 
and rather pronounced toilette, was exceedingly par- 
ticular as to the newest shoes and gloves, perfume — 
which I seldom used as a rule — and patches, possibly 
I “made my face” rather more than was my wont ; 
be it as it may, I arrived at “His Grace my Lord 
General’s lodgings at the Cockpit” somewhat late, and 
found myself in distinctly Whiggish company, still 
more reckless in humour, and — may I say it? — there 
were two or three people present whom neither Mon- 
mouth nor I troubled ourselves about as a rule, and 
who were perhaps as much out of water as I confess 
it was my first impulse to feel. 

James greeted me with his usual charm of manner 
a fraction exaggerated. His face was a little flushed, 
his dress a shade too splendid (perhaps like mine), 
daffodil velvet and white satin; he was obviously 
determined to show us we were all to enjoy ourselves 
and be happy. There was a great lavishness of flowers 
and fruit, glorious gold plate and crystal, and a good 
deal of wine appeared to be circulating. I took his 
greeting as it was given ; then I confess I asked 
rather pointedly, “And, my dear cousin, her Grace 
your wife?” 

Somebody laughed. 

I admit that angered me, and it certainly annoyed 
Monmouth: it put the whole situation on the wrong 


The King my Friend 


237 


plane. I would not say for certain that he was not 
a trifle vexed with me for asking so outspokenly for 
a hostess who obviously never meant to be there, but 
this had not been even hinted, at in the verbal mes- 
sage (I was wrong to take it) which I had received, 
as I say, by one of his gentlemen in lieu of a cere- 
monious invitation. After all, the Duchess of Mon- 
mouth and I were outwardly on good terms; we met 
fairly frequently at Court and sometimes at St. 
James’s, as she was a great friend of the Duke of 
York and the Lady Mary. Monmouth made a pretty, 
plausible, empty excuse. I said no more; I could not, 
especially as there were other women there whom I 
met and knew at the palace entertainments, and 
Monmouth’s friends, especially Mr. Thynne and Tom 
Wharton, were very well known to me. The latter 
proved the firebrand, as I might have guessed. I can 
only believe he thought I had come more or less on 
purpose to meet him that night ; it was certain I 
was not dressed for the role of chaperon, nor was 
there anybody present in need of me in that role; I 
excuse Tom Wharton though I blame myself. He 
attached himself to me at once. He was looking ex- 
traordinarily well in his comely English way, fair- 
haired, blue-eyed, ruddy-cheeked. The men who liked 
him, and they were many, always slapped him on the 
back; the men who loathed him, and they were just 
as numerous, were very careful to be civil to his face; 
there was no swordsman in England, fine as most of 
the courtiers and all the soldiers were, to approach 
him — he was hardly ever challenged, for every one 
knew he could kill any man he pleased; he was the 
reverse of belligerent, for he was merciful in his 
power. 

I was something of an enigma to him, I suppose, 
and a little bit of a contrast to most of his ladies; I 
was not too old to be attractive to a man of his age; 


238 


My Two Kings 


I imagine he was “without engagements” at that 
moment, and I believe he had heard it reported that 
nobody could succeed with me. Certainly between us 
we had staged a little comedy that night — which nearly 
strayed into the realms of tragedy. 

Everybody (as everybody knows) drank deeply in 
those days. I am not going to say that anybody was 
drunk, but, from our host downwards, most of the 
men had had enough early in the evening! I stood a 
fire of somewhat too pressing compliments, with the 
meaningless Court smile on my face and a string of 
the accustomed repartees, but the pace began to be 
taken a little too fast. 

I made up my mind, rose rather quickly, crossed 
the room to Monmouth and said softly, “It grows late, 
cousin James; I think it were well I should return. 
May my chair be called?” 

Monmouth — a vine-wreath in his curls would have 
turned him into an ideal young Bacchus — just for 
one instant looked irritated, though his face cleared 
the second after. Tom Wharton, however, following 
hard on my heels, saw everything, and took swift ad- 
vantage of that passing frown. 

“Go home to bed, my fair lady?” he cried, and 
caught me by the wrist. “That you shall not, eh, 

‘Cousin James’? Or, if you are in such haste ” 

I do not know what he meant to add, something per- 
fectly innocent in all probability; but with him, as 
with John Wilmot, one never could answer for the next 
speech. 

His hand on my wrist too was going far. I turned 
straight round and looked at him. 

“Let me go,” said my look, “and hold your tongue !” 
but I judged it wiser to speak no word. Unfortu- 
ately he did not loose my hand, and though he did 
not finish his sentence, he rounded it off with a laugh 
which was on the verge of being familiar. But this 


The King mg Friend 


239 


was not all : he stooped quickly and kissed, not the hand 
he held, but the shoulder next him. 

I nearly laughed at what occurred then, for after 
all nothing really terrible had happened, and Mon- 
mouth and I had neither of us behaved quite well, 
and deserved what we got ! But Monmouth’s next 
move, though, as I say, it made me want to laugh, yet 
sent a thrill of icy fear through me, and at the same 
time a warm glow of gratitude — a woman likes a 
protector, even against the man she has tacitly al- 
lowed to pay her some sort of court. 

I can remember the whi-s-s-sh with which Mon- 
mouth’s sword leapt out of its scabbard — the lightning 
rapidity of it; my suddenly finding him, still flushed 
but marvellously changed and set in expression, his 
brown eyes deep and stern, his smiling mouth in 
severest lines, between me and his friend. My hand 
was dropped, and the glint of the steel, pretty play- 
thing, a full-dress rapier but still a deadly weapon, 
separated me and Tom Wharton — in his own rooms ! 
— his great friend, the finest swordsman in the world, 
a public scandal for me, and for nothing — oh, that 
was impossible altogether! I beat down the slender 
blade with my palm and said sharply, but not too 
quickly, “My dear James, thank you, but we’re not 
at declared warfare yet.” 

I looked across at Wharton; he met me with a 
comprehending smile, more master of himself than was 
Monmouth, and evidently ready to own that he was 
in the wrong. 

“Madame, your pardon,” he said. “The thought 
of your loss all of a sudden must be my excuse. As 
for you, my dear Duke,” with another charming and 
perfectly self-assured smile, “that’s a charming toy. 
May it often be drawn for Madame Stuart, but not 
against me, the most devout of her worshippers.” 

Across the ring of curious eyes fixed on us three I 


240 


My Two Kings 


noticed Katherine Crofts’s satirical smile, Eleanor 
Needham’s fair face, white under her rouge with a 
terror I have confessed I also felt. I turned to both 
men. I put a hand on Monmouth’s left and laid the 
other on Tom Wharton’s. He lifted it and kissed it 
with perfect respect and a murmured, “Forgive me,” 
that only I caught; Monmouth stood perfectly still 
with his point dropped as I had beaten it down. I 
let go his left hand and walked deliberately round him, 
taking hold of the hilt of the sword. 

“Come,” I said, like a nurse to an impatient child, 
“put it up,” and the gleaming steel slid into the 
scabbard. “Thank you,” I added, as if I were 
thanking him for sheathing his weapon, but with a 
certain weight of emphasis I knew he would under- 
stand. 

The tension relaxed. 

I broke no hearts at Court, I broke no friendships 
either. I can look back over those days and trust 
that, if I did but little good, I did not do much harm ! 
But that evening was a lesson to more than one of us, 
I think. At least it taught me what to avoid. But 
I had not done with my pursuer then. 

I might have learnt what to avoid, but not how 
to avoid it ! That impulsive child — she was little 
more — Lady Sussex, installed in the rooms once her 
mother’s, must (apparently to defy that mother) 
make rather a point of my acquaintance; she would 
send to me, run to me unattended; in fact, she put 
me to a considerable amount of trouble and some 
embarrassment, little firebrand that she was, and a 
perfect imp of mischief. She rushed in the next 
morning to consult me about a new riding-dress without 
asking with my leave or by my leave, impetuously 
a-drumming at my entrance, and, once in, impossible 
to dispose of. Unfortunately, when she did go, though 


The King my Friend 


241 


I had denied myself to all other company, she must 
needs hold me at my own door in lingering converse, 
laughing, screwing up her eyes in the way Monmouth 
did, though hers were not half so fine, pouting her full 
underlip, jesting to the last. 

And, as she kept me there, before I could escape 
within, Mr. Wharton stood in the corridor, bowing, 
hat in hand, come to wait on me, and finding me, 
as his amused glance showed, fairly caught. Lady 
Sussex would not stay a moment then — no, not she! 
She “expected His Majesty”; she “must fly, fly!” and 
certainly she flew, and I was left, feeling as trapped 
as any girl whose lover has laid a gin for her, furious 
with myself for caring, at my age, yet knowing per- 
fectly well that this young man was no mean antagon- 
ist, and that I should require all my aplomb and 
perhaps some of my courage. 

I should omit this incident altogether were it not 
for the part the King played. 

It shows me at my most foolish ; it does not redound 
to Tom Wharton’s credit — in fact, it betrays him in 
his worst light. It seems that, determining to keep 
the peace at Monmouth’s lodgings the previous night, 
I had by no means snubbed him as I intended — in 
fact, he looked upon himself as encouraged. I hoped 
he had come in cooler blood to crave pardon; nothing 
was farther from his thoughts. We began with a war 
of words at which I trusted to hold my own, and was 
soon beaten; then to my dismay I found myself more 
closely pressed — I tried anger, and was laughed at; 
tried laughter in return, and was made more violent 
love to than ever; and to cut an ugly scene short, 
realising I was alone in my rooms without even my 
faithful maid (who was at the Duchess of Richmond’s 
on an errand) I tore myself from the clasp of Whar- 
ton’s arms, flew through the ante-room, reached the 
outer door and flung it open, intending, such was my 


242 


My Two Kings 


folly, simply to run into the rooms of the sempstresses 
— the maids-of-honour — anywhere ! — instead of which 
I ran straight into a tall man just outside. Wharton, 
on my very heels, pulled up short. I, gasping for 
breath, found myself held upright by two strong 
hands, looked up wildly into a dark face, set rather 
sternly, but with all-comprehending eyes, and realised 
it was Charles himself. 

Often in these later days I think over that morn- 
ing’s work and wonder if all those thousands who 
threw dirt at the name of The Merry Monarch would 
believe me if I said that in my most difficult moment 
he it was who came to my rescue. 

With swift tact and understanding, he drew me 
within my outer door, closed it behind us, with one 
hand put me into a tall-backed chair in my little 
entry, and turned to Mr. Wharton. That confirmed 
Whig, important man in his own country, was little 
known at Whitehall, but whom did the King not 
know? He had the grace to bow deeply, but he 
never lost a tithe of his impudence; even I (even 
Charles, I afterwards heard) could not but admire 
him. “Your pardon, Your Majesty,” he said easily, 
bowing again. 

The King — never had I seen his face so darkly stern 
• — looked him all over from head to foot from his com- 
manding height. 

“My pardon, sir?” he said slowly, “I think ’tis this 
lady’s you should sue for.” 

“This lady is very kind” — the insolence of it ! — “She 
will forgive me without asking.” 

I half rose and tried to speak. Charles made a little 
sign to me to be silent. 

“I am not accustomed,” he remarked in a slow, 
cold voice, very like the Duke of York’s — one I had 
never heard before from him and sincerely hoped I 
should never hear directed to my address ! — “I am 


The King my Friend 


243 


not accustomed to being corrected in my own house. 
You were causing this lady agitation and annoyance — 
beg her forgiveness.” 

The saturnine dark face showed very little emotion, 
it was almost as if a mask were set on the features; 
every movement was easy, the words written look 
sterner than they sounded, but beneath them was the 
note of an order given by King to subject; none but 
Tom Wharton could have met it lightly. 

“Why, Madame,” he smiled, turning to me, “since 
our jesting is perforce treated seriously, I crave most 
humbly your clemency. Yours, Sire, I must also ask, 
as it appears I poach upon your preserves.” 

Upon this absolutely impossible speech there fell 
for one instant a silence so profound that it was in 
itself terrifying. This was the man I had been fool 
enough to treat as a friend, a gallant, a “servant,” 
to whom in lighter moments I had given some license 
• — that he, knowing me (as he did) should say such a 
thing of me and to the King! For an instant, I 
frankly confess, I was completely swept off my feet. 
How would the King take it? — in my rooms — in his 
own palace? James had drawn his sword for me but 
last night, and now this insolence before my face and 
to His Majesty! 

I can only excuse myself by saying I did not think 
of Madame Stuart at all. I ignored the all-too-plain 
insinuation as to my relations with my Royal cousin; 
I never took into consideration how shamefully my 
kindness of heart, yes, even my passing recklessness, 
were being abused; I only thought of the King and 
what he would do. And what he did was to my 
mind wholly admirable. To treat such a statement 
as worthy of anger was to treat it as worthy of re- 
futing. A laugh would have been part of Tom Whar- 
ton’s own armoury; a withering rebuke, however richly 
deserved, might have been met with still more hopeless 


244 


My Two Kings 


insolence. Charles drew out his snuff-box, took a pinch, 
looked at him, lifted his eyebrows ever so lightly, and 
said in a perfectly natural voice: “ 1 had thought you 
a clever fellow, Tom. You’re a damned fool, and you 
know it. Now you can go.” And without another 
word Tom Wharton went. 


The door closed behind him. I rose to my feet 
and made a step towards the King. “Sire,” I said 
firmly, “now I take on myself all the blame for 
this. I have — encouraged him. But believe me — 
oh! you do believe me, do you not? — that is all, 
all?” and I found myself holding his laced cuff and 
staring with eager gaze into his. The smouldering 
brown-black eyes lit up ever so little, the upper lip 
curved. 

“Am I,” said Charles, his disengaged hand laid on 
both of mine — “am I to call you what I called that 
pestilent fellow?” as I fell back, rather near breaking 
down and laughing at the same moment. “Encourage 
’em, by gad! why not? But choose the right sort, 
my cousin. Shall I go away and vow you have en- 
couraged me?” 

“Ah, Sire,” I said quickly. “Go away and say any- 
thing you like of me. You know, and I know, and 
what else signifies? Am I never to be done thanking 
you? James drew his sword for me on Mr. Wharton 
last night.” 

“James? Well, he never lacked pluck!” said Charles 
meditatively. “The finest swordsman in my three 
kingdoms. He’d have spitted James and me at one 
lunge and gone home to breakfast thinking no more 
of it, with you under his arm, shall we say ?” 

I was obliged to laugh. “No, we will not say it,” 
I said. “He who hurts you, or James — well. . . 

I paused. 


The King my Friend 


245 


“Well,” echoed Charles, “your favourite phrase! I 
should say ‘ill.’ But all’s well that ends well. I do 
not think you will have more trouble. If you do, 
why, I am not far off. Scream, my lady, scream, and 
I’ll come running — to be spitted willingly,” and he 
laughed and so did I. 

“Ah, but I must ask forgiveness,” I said, “that 
you should have been so insulted — and because of 
me.” 

Charles looked at me very severely. “Madame,” he 
replied, “no man insults me unless I permit it. I do 
not think yonder clown has my permission. And be- 
cause of you!” his face suddenly softened. “Women 
are silly,” he remarked, half aside. “You know in your 
heart you are glad it was I, eh?” 

“That’s different,” I cried. “Oh yes, I’m glad ! You 
— you’re so strong, somehow.” 

“Somehow?” he mocked. “Yes, I’m still fairly hale; 
and J ames — you did not actually hate having his 
sword drawn for you? And knowing all the time, in 
spite of appearances, that you were a good girl?” He 
smiled, and then laughed outright; then he stopped 
suddenly. “I wonder what it feels like to be good,” 
said Charles II, thoughtfully. 

“When it brings your King and your King’s son 
into a mad business like this,” I said stoutly, “it feels 
horrible !” 

Charles turned to the door with the kindest of 
farewell glances from those deep eyes. “Ah,” he 
said, “but you weren’t being quite good; you were 
almost being naughty, my cousin! Now I must 
find that little witch Anne. They told me she was 
here, that was why I came on from her lodgings to 
yours.” 

“She was, Sire, but she ran away ever so mischiev- 
ously when Mr. Wharton came.” 

“Good-bye, cousin Charlotte,” answered my 


246 


My Two Kings 


Sovereign as I let him out. “And now, for pity’s sake, 
revise the company you keep. Anne, Tom, myself, 
all in an hour! At any rate you don’t want for ex- 
citement. Now try to get hold of somebody quiet and 
decent and dull!” and he was gone with that swift 
swing of his down the corridor. I locked the door, and 
the door of my saloon. 

“Oh, Charles,” I said to myself, “and they speak 
ill of you ! They say you’re bad. How bad, how very 
much worse they must be themselves to draw evil out 
of you, since I (who deserve shaking and have been 
soundly shaken this morning) get this !” 


And the next time I met Mr. Wharton was under 
the green shade of the Mall, as I was walking with 
the Careys and John Evelyn, and all he got in return 
for his usual bow and smile, and his graceful insolence 
in addressing me as if nothing <had happened, was a 
little yawn, half hidden by a great shading fan, and the 
back of my scornful head. 


WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 















» 





CHAPTER XIV 


WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 

“Sentries, pass him through, — 

Drawbridge let fall — he’s the lord of us all, 

The dreamer whose dream came true!” 

Rudyard Kipling. 

I knew William III moderately well when Prince of 
Orange, and I heard him discussed tremendously be- 
fore, and during, his reign as King of England. 

I have read a great deal about him in this later life, 
for and against, and I had, and have, a precisely 
similar opinion of him. I do not believe his 
religion counted for much, nor his love for his wife 
or for anybody else, not excepting the men favourites 
to whom he was certainly deeply attached. I do not 
think his direct patriotism, if I may put it thus, his 
love for Holland, was as great as many thought. But 
he was above all things a man of boundless ambition — 
a great flame of fire burning in a frail body — and the 
whole of that ambition, the One Idea of his life, was 
the breaking of the power of France over the civilised 
world. People frequently forget that France was 
very nearly as much the bogy of Europe then as 
Germany (and Germany quiescent, too!) has been, 
to those who knew, this last decade. William meant 
to break France, and he broke her — he has my respect- 
ful homage. I can see how deeply hero-worship for 
him must sink in the hearts of those who love him. 
I pay him the supremest compliment possible from a 
woman — I wish the men I loved had been as strong 
249 


250 


My Two Kings 


and single-minded. I would gladly have thrown in 
my lot with Nassau had there been no Charles and no 
Monmouth. As it was, I had nothing to give him — 
perhaps, since we were all working underground in 
the latter part of my life at Court, he and I were 
opposed. Outwardly he was polite to me, certainly 
he did me the honour of noticing my existence, and 
therefore I fancy he thought me a source of possible 
danger. I would have gone back to Court when 
James II abdicated, and put my poor services, such 
as they were, at the disposal of William and his wife. 
But to this day I am not sure that part of the schem- 
ing that encompassed Monmouth’s downfall was not 
due to William, marvellously well concealed; but if 
William could hide all from me, Bentinck did not, 
Ailesbury had a shrewd guess . 1 Charles knew; what 
Monmouth knew died with him; James II knew nothing. 
The horror and the tragedy, and yet the comedy of 
it all! We were pieces in his game, or in the game 
against him. He fought France single-handed, single- 
hearted, though he had other affairs on hand and at 
heart, and some of us were in the pay of France (never 
I!) so I think that occasionally we got in his way. 
Well, he swept us out of it. 

So I used to sit in my farmhouse in Hertfordshire 
and listen to the echoes of the Court — plenty of echoes 
rang in St. Albans, from Churchill sources, I vow! — 
and I saw France tottering to her fall, and I saw 
William killing himself over the darkening of that 
great reign — the Day of the Sun. I speak of a reign, 
not of a country. Thus it was. Louis XIV was a 
perfectly stupendous figure — little, vain, sour-faced, 
high-heeled, wicked Louis, yet a gentleman every inch 

i Vide the Memoirs of Thomas Bruce , Earl of Ailesbury, Rox- 
burghe Club, Camden Society. As gentleman of the Bedchamber, 
Bruce was intimately associated with Charles, James of York, and 
James of Monmouth, from 1674 to the downfall of James II in 1688, 


William the Conqueror 251 

of him to the exiled Stuarts, and a man who, alas ! 
was fated to watch himself descend into the darkness 
from the zenith of his great kingship. I am sorry for 
Louis XIV, I have no sorrow for William III, for all 
we are called on to pity him for his bad health and 
the loss of that dear lady, his wife, his existence of 
struggling against titanic difficulties, and his courage 
in the face of innumerable defeats. 

His dream came true; and I have no pity! 


In 1677 he came over to England to marry the Lady 
Mary. 

There were gay doings, overlying a sense of unrest, 
and a very markedly felt opposition to the marriage, 
helpless, but furious, on the part of the Duke of York. 
Why was Charles so set on it? It would seem as if 
he had second-sight, that he knew the children to be 
born to the youthful second Duchess would never sit 
on his throne, that James his brother would never sit 
there long, that this wedding would provide England 
with a couple of heirs — the nearest — married to each 
other, assurance made doubly sure. And I wonder 
and I wonder yet, if at the bottom of his schemings 
he did not go about to cut down the power of France 
by the foot through this pretty, tall, malleable niece, 
and this stern, self-contained nephew, in whose Stuart- 
brown eyes burned the fire of undying ambition — and 
hatred of Louis. It may be. Charles saw so far! 
Indeed, it may be that he saw farther than I do now, 
who have seen it all come to pass — William’s foot on 
France’s neck, and the Lady Mary, ere she went to 
her early grave in The Abbey, the adoring wife who 
helped set it there, and one of the best queens England 
has ever had. 

I did not see much of the gaieties for several days. 

The Princess alternated between fits of almost 


252 


My Two Kings 


hysterical high spirits and floods of tears. Her sister 
Anne was unwell, so was their gouvernante, Lady 
Frances Villiers (the smallpox declared itself in both 
cases shortly after), Mary of Modena was daily ex- 
pecting her child, the Duke of York was unapproach- 
able — or, at any rate, best not approached! — anxious 
politicians, Danby especially, in the foreground of 
whose mind the Tower ever loomed, added to the 
tension of the atmosphere. M. Barrillon, the French 
ambassador, was obviously annoyed, and as obviously 
at a loss to fathom Charles’s tactics; that monarch 
was jovial, full of spirits, and a magnificent host. To 
see him dealing with his nephew William M. Bentinck, 
and the other Dutchmen who came in the Prince of 
Orange’s train, was as good as a play! 

The trouble was that William was hard to entertain. 
The King could not, and would not, always be at it; 
he hardly seemed aware of the Lady Mary’s presence, 
several of the professionally amusing women (I will 
be so far spiteful) tried their best, and failed as 
amusingly — he looked over their heads, short though 
he was, with his great melancholy eyes, and as he 
could parry words with the best of us, when they 
tried sarcasm they were beaten in open Court ! 
Nothing escaped those eyes. William attracted me 
in one way and repelled me in another, but a man 
with a single great idea always compels admiration, 
generally unwillingly. He could dance, he dressed 
not ill, he was half a Stuart for all he seemed to wish 
to ignore it — myself, I thought the Lady Mary a 
fool, for none could deny that he was a man, and 
would go far; besides, there is a subtle fascination 
in a gentleman to whom beauty and youth and easy 
wit are nothing, and brains count — that I saw soon. 
I fancy I was one of the first people who noticed the 
way in which Elizabeth Villiers was drawn to him, 
and he to her, by the sheer magnetism of their 


William the Conqueror 253 

cleverness — he was ambitious, and she ambitious for 
him. 

There was music one night, and I was bidden — I 
had excused myself when they danced ; the whole 
business was fraught with too much strain for me, 
the air was volcanic. I could sit in a quiet corner 
and listen to some of my beloved melodies, I thought. 
I put on a simple dark blue silk gown, wore no jewels, 
omitted ceruse, slipped unostentatiously into the 
background, and, behind a great black and gold fan, 
listened to the enchanting strains. Music was music 
at Whitehall. 

And then the unexpected happened. 

Monmouth had been looking rather glum all the 
evening. He was fond of his youthful cousin Mary, 
who danced adorably with him, and though he en- 
joyed the routing of his uncle James, he was puzzled 
by the King’s attitude and bothered — Monmouth was 
always bothered by the underlying politics that 
seethed below! He, whom I had not seen to speak 
to that night, threaded his way through the shifting 
crowd and the array of gilded seats; I looked up 
gladly, hoping he was coming to talk to me, but saw 
directly that he was not alone, a small dark man in 
a claret satin suit and heavy auburn peruke was on 
his heels. 

“Madame, the Prince of Orange wishes me to present 
you to him,” and William and I were face to face. 

I rose immediately, curtsied, smiled, made some 
banal remark about the music, or the crowd, or what 
not, and met his gaze with the piercing brown eyes 
looking steadily at me. 

“So it is not play you want, sir,” I said to myself, 
“that is a business-like expression if ever I saw one!” 
I think my expression must have betrayed my thoughts, 
for a gleam of understanding shot through the fixed 
stare. 


254 


My Two Kings 


“Ah, Highness,” I said, but lightly. “Why do we — 
do I — make vain talk? Forgive me, I have fallen into 
the trick of it.” 

“One falls into many tricks here, it seemeth,” he 
said. His English was slow and laboured; now and 
then his accent was marked, a fact which militated 
against him at our polyglot Whitehall, where we chat- 
tered French or English with equal ease, had a smat- 
tering of many other tongues — Dutch, Portuguese, 
and Italian especially. 

“Oh,” said I, “we do not always say exactly what 
we mean — do you , Highness?” This rather bold sally 
did not offend, but seemed to amuse him. 

“Hardly,” he replied; “but Madame, forgive me, I 
think many of this fine company” — he glanced round 
it — “could not say what they meant if they tried, for 
they mean nothing. Those who mean something, cer- 
tainly aim at concealing their meaning.” 

I looked round with an air of following his glance, 
piqued, for I did not think his speech polite, but in- 
terested to see what else he would say. 

“A sorry collection of rattlepates, sir,” I volun- 
teered, with a wise, middle-aged smile. “And everybody 
does think he has a most important game to play, 
and plays it, like an ostrich, with only his head hidden. 
There is much to watch at Court.” 

“There is little to trust,” said William of Orange 
bitterly, with disarming, but, I think, calculated 
frankness. “Tell me, Madame, have you such a 
thing as an honest man or an honest woman in White- 
hall?” 

For an instant I was furious. Then I checked my 
upward-surging temper. There was meaning in that 
query. 

“Eh?” I said with a rising inflexion. “That is 
the remark — forgive me, Highness — of some one who 
has had a trial of wits and has been ” I paused. 


William the Conqueror 255 

“No, I am wrong! I will answer your question. Yes, 
sir, there is one honest man.” 

I pointed with my fan to a big mirror beside us. 
I was amused to see the flicker of a smile across the 
young Prince’s face as he, following the fan, met his 
own reflection. I smiled too, but I added: “High- 
ness, believe me, you would think us all honest if we 
agreed with you. Am I wrong as well as imperti- 
nent ?” 

He looked me over slowly. “You have caught the 
trick — the eternal trick — of juggling with words,” he 
replied coldly. “What you meant to say was that I 
consider myself honest, and because my methods and 
intentions ” (there was an underlining of the last word 
I could not miss) “are totally different from } 7 ours, 
I am certain you are all false.” 

A little silence fell between us. “Why, sir,” I 
ejaculated softly, with irrepressible amusement, 
“then I must indeed have been rude! Yet it is the 
truth; do you not think so? And if that is the case, 
mon prince, we are being terribly” — I hesitated on 
purpose — “ honest with each other, you and I, are not 
we? At least these are no pretty Whitehall speeches! 
But who said I was in love with pretty speeches? 
I never was. I will answer you (I think I have done 
it already) quite straight. Ask me what you like, 
Highness, for I do not count for anything here; 
and” — I turned a little about, shifting my dark skirts 
and closing my fan — “and I am not at all afraid of 
you !” 

Here he laughed. 

The whole stern serious face lit up in true Stuart 
mirth, the worn lines that pain had drawn vanished, 
the wonderful eyes twinkled as merrily as his uncle’s. 
He bowed slightly. “No, Madame, I saw that at 
once. Now I will also ask you one thing: Why is 
my prespective bride so much afraid of me?” 


256 


My Two Kings 


I looked at him, and then, for the life of me I could 
not help it, I let my eyelids droop and said softly: 
“Oh, sir — why — if I were a child of fifteen and 
ordered to marry you offhand, I might be a little 
scared !” 

He was not angry; he smiled again. “I see,” he 
said. “Natural feminine nervousness; I know so little 
of women.” 

At that, as I had promised him, I spoke straight. 
“Oh,” I said, “Oh, but how lucky for her! She is 
a charming girl, win her heart and you will win — all 
that goes with it; and that,” I added, and looked him 
between the eyes, “may be much, Highness.” 

The music rose and fell, the crowd moved, dis- 
solved, formed in groups, glanced at us or passed us 

b y- 

“Sir,” I said, “I wish with all my heart Princess 
Mary had married her cousin Monmouth. The dates 
were out, and ” I shrugged my shoulders. 

The Prince glanced at me, his upper lip slowly 
curving into the line I knew so well. “You would 
have preferred a bastard for the Lady Mary to the 
reigning Prince of Orange,” he remarked very slowly 
and extremely coldly. “Perhaps I can do better for 
her than that.” 

Whatever happened I was not going to get angry, 
but neither was I to be silenced. 

“Frankly,” I said, moving the great fan to and fro 
in time to the beat of the distant music, “I was not 
thinking of you. It was of Monmouth, and what mar- 
riage with a girl like her Highness might have done 
for him.” 

The Prince of Orange regarded me. “As you re- 
marked before, ‘that might be much.’ ” 

“I love James,” I confessed, “and I should have 
dearly liked a wife he could love. I am not ambitious 
for him.” 


William the Conqueror 


257 


“But he is ambitious,” said William quietly. “So 
am I. So is my good uncle of York. So are most 
of these fine gentlemen and ladies. They all want 
something, and they are all ready to pay a price for 
it and — to be paid a price. Now,” he turned right 
round and considered me, “ you have a price; what 
is it?” 

I stood before him, still slowly fanning myself, and 
I laughed. “First of all, sir, am I ambitious? If 
so, what do I want? And the figure of my price would 
come after that. But perhaps there is yet another 
thing to be said. Do you think so certainly that I 
am for sale? and if so, do you think anybody — yes, 
Highness, anybody — could buy me? And,” I finished 
quite lightly, “do you think that, once this prob- 
lematical sum were paid, I should be worth it?” 

“I am not going to make a bid,” he said serenely 
— his diplomatic methods were marvellously out- 
spoken. 

“No, sir,” I smiled, “I hope not. If I might dare 
to think of your Highness’s freely given friendship in 
future, it would be a happiness. Whereas, if you 
offered me” (I looked once more round the glittering 
room) “all you can think of to tempt a woman and 
I said ‘No’ . . .” We laughed. Then I was swiftly 
serious and spoke in a low tone. 

“Recollect, sir, not all women are for sale. Think 
of that when you wed our sweet Princess. Some women 
give, if they can but find the man who can make them 
wish to give, all — all. Think no more of me or the 
logic we have chopped to-night. But you are to marry 
a wife with whom you may work marvels. Make her 
love you first.” 

He glanced once more at me, curiously, and gave 
a little sigh; I could see all that went on in his mind. 
He had every belief in his powers as a great prince — 
as a lover he knew nothing of himself. 


258 


My Two Kings 


“Do you doubt?” I asked. “Oh, if you but try, 
Nassau” — I dared this form of address — “I do think 
a woman would be hard put to it to refuse what you 
might ask ! Think. Indeed I may have done you good 
service.” 

Perhaps I did. I meant to. Why not? But if 
I could have married Mary to Monmouth that week 
I should never have thought of Holland and its 
Stadtholder again. And the world might have gone 
so differently for us all! 

Oh, William of Orange who was never my friend, 
you set your ironshod heel on more necks than that 
of the great Louis. Mary your wife was your slave, 
her father James fled outcast before you into exile, 
his son, the rightful heir, was never more than heir, 
Monmouth — there I say nothing. And you yourself 
died when but a comparatively young man, even before 
my Lord Churchill your contemporary rose to the 
greatest heights of his starry career. Shakespeare 
charged us to “fling away ambition, by that sin fell 
the angels.” Why, if it be a sin, then those who 
suffer from it cease to be angels; undoubtedly some 
of them fall. But I have seen more flights towards 
the upper air than descents from Heaven; and if you 
were Lucifer you did not fall, you attained your 
object. 

Was it worth it, William of Nassau, Prince of 
Orange, and later King of England? You succeeded, 
and we hated you — and the hate of England is a ter- 
rible thing. 


/ 


THE LOVE OF LADY WENTWORTH 


























CHAPTER XV 


THE LOVE OF LADY WENTWORTH 
This is the last request 

Of those who heard the voices in the night. 

Of those who saw the vision on the height, 

Only to watch it fading from their sight: 

“Grant us no second best!” 

Isabel Butch art. 

It was not very long after this that I, watching 
Monmouth rather more closely than before, came to 
see a change in him, almost imperceptible at first. 
He was restless — nothing new, that ! but it was a 
differing restlessness — distrait, serious in a manner 
that provoked his father’s badinage, and (as I noticed 
also) arrested Charles’s attention. He too kept a wary 
black eye on Monmouth. What ailed our bad boy? — 
in truth a boy no longer, yet everlastingly a child to 
Charles and me. 

Watching, I saw that yet another watched — ah, 
there lay the key to the riddle! All was made clear 
to me in a lightning flash by the slight change in 
Henrietta Wentworth’s bearing. She was on the alert 
— and also obviously on the defensive; there was no 
meeting of James’s overtures half way, indeed she 
retreated as he advanced, and, as time went on, sought 
more and more to avoid him, — she was cool, she was 
calm, she was entirely baffling. 

Of course this piqued Monmouth, and of course 
he attacked with redoubled ardour, only to be deci- 
sively and very skilfully repulsed; never had he been 
so utterly taken aback, he seemed to expect the 
261 


262 


My Two Kings 


heavens to fall! I remember one day passing through 
the many small rooms that ran one into another in 
the palace, and finding them both by the window, 
Monmouth, repulsed again, swinging off with a bow 
to her, a puzzled smile at me, more hurt than he meant 
to show. She, facing me, was white, breathless, her 
hands clenched, as furious with me as with him! — 
standing by the casement, motionless. 

I went closer to her and stood before her. “My 
child,” I said, “you are angry with me as well as 
with the Duke. You fancy I want him just to get 
his own way, as usual. But what does he want this 
time, and what has he to give? What could you be 
to him, what would you?” 

“Not a Moll Kirke,” she fired up (a cold fire) ; “not 
a Betty Felton ; not a ” 

I stopped her with a smile. “I know the list of 
those whom you could never be — you are not of that 
sort, those light fools. I know you so much better 
than you think; I am not afraid for you, I am afraid 
for him. For the first time in his life he has met 
Love face to face. He brings you a heart as un- 
touched as if he had never looked at another woman! 
and, Lady Wentworth, at whom hath he not looked? 
But he is yours to make into a man. The Stuarts 
would all have been different if they had loved, and 
had had love from, the right person. I believe now 
that one has chosen the right.” 

She made a movement as if to speak, and I put 
my hand on her arm. “Listen to me patiently for 
a moment,” I said. “I talk of this matter for the 
first time — and perhaps the last — but for the first time 
in five long years, Lady Wentworth.” 

She drew herself up, straight and dim and tense, 
to her full height, and the glimmering eyes like black 
diamonds looked down into mine, and right to my 
very soul. 


The Love of Lady Wentworth 263 

“I have known from the first, and you have known 
that I know,” I said briefly. “I alone, Mistress. I 
have no more to say to you, I am not thinking of you 
at all, I am thinking of him — of him — of him; yet 
I am not in love with him, remember ! — and you 
are.” 

Her whole face changed, softened, was irradiated 
by one of the most beautiful smiles I have ever seen. 
At last I had struck the right note with her! — my 
carelessness of herself, my selfless devotion to Mon- 
mouth. 

“/ have thought of him, and of no one else at all, 
ever since I first met him,” she said simply, “seven 
years ago, and you have known me for five years, 
and for five years you have known this . . . and 
oh !” her voice broke in a little ripple of intense 
amusement — “he — he hath not guessed it yet! Let 
me laugh just for once, Madame!” and we looked at 
each other and were serious no longer. (“Just for 
once, Madame,” — that phrase made my heart ache 
beneath our merriment.) 

“Oh,” she murmured again, and “oh, how can a be- 
loved man be so blind?” 

“You have blinded him,” I smiled at her. “You 
do not know there is a rapier in your eyes, my dear!” 

“Perhaps there is,” she answered in a whisper, 
her laughter put away as suddenly as it had begun. 
“Perhaps there is ! I have fought for him so long ; 
I have been fighting all the world for him.” 

“Sheathe your sword,” I said, “you are turning 
it on him too. I saw — just now — and you frightened 
me! He is at your feet, and you bewilder him, puzzle 
him, make him doubt himself, doubt you. For once 
do not be angry, smile, just for once, and see how 
he looks at you. There is only one way of looking 
for every man in the world when it is at the woman 
he worships.” 


264 


My Two Kings 


She turned her fair face to me. “Oh, I know — 
I know!” she said with another little broken laugh, 
“I know how he looks at me! But you, Madame, 
you who leave love out of your life, you too feel . . . ?” 
The words came draggingly as if she did not mean to 
say them. 

“I also,” I returned in my usual voice. “Even I — 
just a little.” 

“Little, Madame?” asked Henrietta Wentworth. 
“Too much!” 

She turned her eyes from me as if she did not want 
to watch my face, and bent them on the Thames run- 
low and sluggish between his mud banks. And as her 
gaze was on the water, mine was on her, and there 
we stood in complete silence. I drew a deep breath. 
“James,” I said, half to myself, “you’re fortunate. 
By Heaven, you are !” 

“ ‘ Fortunate V ” — her amazed voice brought back 
my laughter as she glanced round again at me. 

“Lady Wentworth,” I said, “I never had a 
daughter. Yet I wish I had, — you . More, I wish the 
Fates willed otherwise, and that you were to be my 
son’s wife.” 

“No woman can say more than that,” she answered; 
then swiftly she caught up one of my hands and pressed 
it to her lips. From that moment we were strangers 
no longer. 

“And this is Whitehall,” I said (irrelevantly, it 
seemed, but she understood me at once). “Ah, but 
there is love here, and those who know as much about 
it as you and I, my child.” 

“There is one,” she whispered softly, “the Queen — 
ah, Madame Stuart, the poor little Queen! She waits 
... as I do. I am not as Her Majesty, but — but 
I will love him as she loves the King.” And at that 
the door opened and the King himself came through, 
alone. 


The Love of Lady Wentworth 265 

He looked at us, standing there, then he walked 
across to us and put a hand on Henrietta’s shoulder 
as she rose from her curtsey. “Will you?” said he, 
with a whimsical side look at me. “You will love 
him — him ?” — he twinkled at me again — “as some- 
body loves me? I’ faith, I wouldn’t if I were you! 
Nobody loves me, my lady. Not” — he paused — “not 
the kind of love I want. They all love me in their 
own way, and it isn't mine” He glanced at me with 
amusement. “You love me, my dear?” and he put 
a hand on my shoulder too, and I stooped my face and 
kissed it, laughing easily. 

“To the death, Your Majesty.” He laughed too, 
and then gave a little sigh. “Yes, ‘to the death, Your 
Majesty!’” “To the death, cousin Charles,” I said 
boldly, and he smiled and sighed again. 

“My dear,” he said, “my loyal and devoted cousin ! 
But,” to Henrietta, “you don’t want to love this 
nameless gentleman” — he gave us both a little shake 
by the shoulders he held — “as a loyal and devoted 
cousin ?” 

“No, Your Majesty, as a loyal and devoted lover,” 
she said firmly (to my great surprise), and looked him 
straight in the face. They never knew fear, those 
Wentworths. 

“Then do so,” said the King suddenly, “and, if he 
is unworthy, I’ll kill him for you. Now you’d better 
tell me who he is, or I shan’t be able to do it.” 

“I’ll tell you, Sire,” was the answer, “when he is 
unworthy; but you shall kill me then — it will be my 
fault.” 

He looked at me and said, with that grave face of 
his belied by the upward tilt of his lips, “Oddsfish, 
then don’t let it be your fault, for I shall break my 
word rather than break that pretty neck,” and he 
took hold of the nape of her neck for one second with 
his long brown fingers. Her eyes suddenly fired again. 


266 


My Two Kings 


She neatly and swiftly made another curtsey and left 
his hand in the air, backed, and was gone. He looked 
at me. 

“Mustn’t touch her, eh?” he asked, with that 
quaint foreign gesture of his hands. “I ought to 
have known! But she’ll be just the girl for 
him, and she’ll hold him, as none of us ever 
could.” 

“So you know, Sire?” 

“Know!” said he. “Since when was I the biggest 
fool in Whitehall? — as big a fool as James himself. 
Heigho ! I’m sorry for Anna, and yet she’s too clever 
to hold any man.” 

I exclaimed at this. 

“Certainly, Madame, a woman may be clever, must 
be clever, to do it, but she must also be somewhat of 
a fool. This child will be both.” 

“And James?” I asked. 

“We all love him, and we’re fools about 
him.” 

“Not altogether, Sire, in all other ways,” I sug- 
gested. 

“No, but fools entirely where James is concerned; 
as silly as he is, with all his pretty ways. I am 
afraid for James” (my own phrase!) “Perhaps — 

now ” but it was with a little shrug he turned and 

went on his way, for he knew James had never loved 
him as he loved James. And I loved him with all my 
heart, and he valued it, as a friend’s, a kinswoman’s 
love. 

“If I had been your mistress,” I said to myself as 
I went away too to my little room. “/// Well, 
you would have had a loyal and devoted lover who 
thought of you first, and last, and of herself never, 
and maybe you would have been surprised! But it 
is impossible to think of such love between you and 
me, or between me and your son. Yet lie’s nearly 


The Love of Lady Wentworth 267 

as fond of me as his father is. But that’s not 
love.” 

“Isn’t it?” said a voice, and I found I was speak- 
ing aloud to myself. Monmouth was standing at the 
window of my withdrawing-room, waiting for me. “I 
want to talk to you — may I? I’ve been waiting here 
years, like a sentry!” 

“You wait for a woman?” I cried, then laughed, 
“but I’m not a woman, am I, my dear boy? I’m the 
interfering old crone who frightens you away — and 
then makes love for you !” 

“You” he exclaimed. “Sit down and tell me,” 
and I found myself pulled down on my settee beside 
him (incorrigible schoolboy) by a handful of my 
skirts. 

“Tell me — oh, you’re an angel!” 

“Yes, but that’s not being a woman either,” I said, 
laughing. “There isn’t much to say. What do you 
want me to tell you?” 

“The truth!” he cried, and gave a little shake to 
the silken folds he still held. 

I looked at him with calculated coolness, up and 
down, just as he sat beside me on the couch, half 
fallen back against the piled cushions, half leaning 
coaxingly towards me, the curve of his glowing cheek 
within an inch of my shoulder, his eyes raised beseech- 
ingly to mine. 

“Cousin Charlotte, the truth an you love 
me !” 

I laughed once more. “That will be something 
new,” I said, “truth from one of my sex to one of 
yours — to you! Are you sure, James, that you will 
care about it when you hear it? Well, ask me what 
you will — I’ll answer.” 

“Why does not she love me?” he said. 

I looked at him again, more coolly than ever. “Why 
should she love you?” I asked deliberately. He stared 


268 


My Two Kings 


at me as if he did not understand — as a matter of 
fact I do not believe he did. “ ‘Why should she?’” 
he began in a puzzled voice. 

“Yes !” I returned, with a touch of assumed impa- 
tience. “Why should she, after all? She probably 
cares for another man and doth not trouble her head 
about you.” 

For the first time in my life I penetrated a weak 
spot in his armour; he winced as if I had slapped his 
face. But I was brutal. 

“My dear,” I said, in my very best auntly manner, 
“you take too much for granted. Lady Wentworth 
may not even like you. In that case, circumstances 
being what they are” — I spoke again with delibera- 
tion — “it is just possible that she simply resents your 
love-making. For what have you to offer her?” and 
I looked into his troubled eyes very seriously. He 
blazed up (my heart warmed, I confess it freely, at 
that blaze) ! 

“Offer her? My love, all my love — all, all! Such 
love as the world has never seen before.” 

Oh, James, oh, James, how young, how eternally 
young you were! Love such as our poor cold elderly 
earth never knew, because you yourself had never yet 
known it? I gave a long sigh that merged into a 
little shaken laugh — and broke off short. For I had 
a surprise. 

He let go my dress, laid his hand over mine lying 
in my lap, just as his all-comprehending father might 
have done; he looked at me with a quite new expres- 
sion on his face, and suddenly I said to myself, “It 
is true, it is true. He loves after all — real love, that 
I always hoped he would feel some day,” and as I 
said this to myself I heard the soft sweet voice murmur 
ver}' gently, “My dear cousin, you sigh, you under- 
stand? You have loved too; perhaps you love now. 
You know what it means.” 


The Love of Lady Wentworth 269 

He was learning, then? I looked into the sympa- 
thetic face with its strangely altered expression and 
said as softly, “Yes, Jamie, I do know what it means. 
But I did not think you did.” 

“And now” — he smiled with a return of the old 
sparkling mischief — “and now you know I do! So 
it is not only I who am hearing the truth, eh? Yes, 
Madame, I know, at last I know. I love her — a/i/” 
Here he suddenly released me, jumped up, strode to 
the fireplace, paused, came back again. As I rose too, 
he caught my hands once more in his and held them 
against the silken shirt between the open fronts of his 
saffron cloth coat. 

“Feel,” he said like a child. “There’s my heart — 
feel!” 

I looked up at him. Through the thin filmy folds, 
the throbbing of his strong young heart beat against 
my hands, hard, swift, passionate, and as it throbbed 
he repeated, “I love her — love her — love her. She will 
not hear, and you would not see. You think that be- 
cause I’ve played the rake and run after a hundred 
women that I loved before? Pah! You thought that 
was love, cousin?” 

I looked up at him still. “Wasn’t it, Jamie? You 
would have sworn it was, each time, each fresh time. 
Was it never love?” 

He shook his head very seriously, with again that 
new look in his eyes. “I’m afraid it wasn’t, my 
dear,” he said; “it was something you know nothing 
about.” 

(/ was being taught, it seemed, and, ’faith, I was 
learning!) 

I took my hands from his heart and laid them on 
his shoulders among his curls. “Listen,” I said; “I 
am going to believe you, for ’tis you indeed, not I, 
who are telling the truth this afternoon, I think. I 
never knew you really cared, and I wanted to know. 


270 My Two Kings 

For, my dear, I have known what she felt this many 
a long year.” 

He gazed at me in utter astonishment. 

“Oh, I knew — and you do not. So now I’ll tell you 
that she loves you . I think she has loved you all her 
life.” 

He was so surprised that he could find no 
words ; he began, stammered, and stopped short 
again. 

“Loves me?” he cried at length, and up in the 
brown eyes leapt a light new to them; he caught his 
breath, and his lips parted. “Loves me, has loved 
me long? Dear, you are raving, she hates me like the 
plague !” 

I burst out laughing and gave a little shake to the 
shoulders on which my hands rested. “Perhaps,” 
I hazarded, “since I, even I, know something of 
this game — perhaps, my child, it is the same 
thing !” 

He was much too serious to see any fun in the 
matter; also a great deal too anxious for my opinion 
to mind my teasing him. He grasped my wrists in 
turn, and in turn gave them a little shake. “Dare I 
hope that?” he asked in a low voice, very gently, 
though his eyes were dark with passion. “Dare I? 
For by Heaven if it be true — if it be true. . . .” 

“More truth, Jamie!” I answered tenderly. “It is 
true.” 

We did not say anything more, we stood still and 
looked at each other, he wondering, it seemed to me, 
if he could possibly believe; I, gauging the extent of 
his devotion, and finding myself, to my great surprise, 
out of my depth in those dark eyes that once had 
been so gaily shallow. How deep now ! — I too 
caught my breath. What is this love that it turns 
us to strangers under the gaze of those who know us 
best? 


The Love of Lady Wentworth 271 

“Oh, my dear boy,” I said at length, “I did not 
know.” 

“And I,” he replied, “I don’t think I know 

anything about women, and I thought I knew — too 
much.” 

He lifted my hands from his shoulders, kissed them 
both, and the old sunny smile broke out afresh. 
“Now I leave you, my kindest friend. I go — wish 
me luck!” and he was at the door in a twinkling. I 
smiled and nodded from where I stood in the middle 
of the floor. 

“Don’t fly after her ; she has gone to the 
Duchess this half-hour. She went off rather an- 
gry, by the way !” and I laughed again. “Your 

father. . . .” 

“Was he there?” 

“There to some purpose; he offered to break the 
neck of a gentleman unknown he overheard us 
talking of, if he were unworthy of her, and she 
said he should break hers in that case (don’t stare 
at me, it isn’t very hard to follow!), and he touched 
the nape of her neck and she curtsied away and 
fled.” 

“Aha!” remarked Monmouth, with a smile. 

“So you understand?” I asked quickly. 

“I ought to, you see I had made her furious. I — 
I’d kissed the back of her neck just before you came 
in.” 

“James, you’re a perfect fool,” I said. 

“Perfect,” he smiled, “I always was. But I’ll go 
away and think.” 

“Can you, I wonder?” I inquired, as he bent over 
my hand, then suddenly I stooped and parted the 
curls of his peruke and kissed his neck in turn. 
He stood up and looked at me and laughed, threw 
his handkerchief into the air, caught it again, and 
was gone. 


272 


My Two Kings 

“Ah,” said I to myself. “Good-bye, my dear boy. 
But that wasn’t kissing, was it?” 

That was the line I took. I did not consider the 
girl at all. I make no excuses for myself, for I ask 
for no excusing. Believing as I did that Henrietta 
would keep Monmouth straight and make a dif- 
ferent man of him, I was content to wait for time to 
prove me right. But remember, never, never would 
I have lifted a finger to help him had I not felt sure 
that he was in love for the last time as well as the 
first. 

So when I write myself as a “good” woman at 
the Restoration Court, I do so in inverted commas. 
According to my own modern standard my share in 
the business was beyond all pardon, and I was told 
that, after Lady Wentworth’s tragic death, I ought 
to have spent the rest of my time overwhelmed with 
remorse. But I did not think her death half so tragic 
as my own later life, I never considered her anything 
but fortunate to die as she did, I envied her luck! 
She had the whole of his heart and she kept it to the 
end, with his dying breath he declared that she had 
redeemed him from a life of vice, he thought her a 
saint always, he called her his “lady of virtue and 
honour” on the scaffold. 

But I suppose we were all sinners together in that 
life! and so, since some hold that we expiate our 
crimes in other existences, it may be that Charlotte 
Stuart left part of her debt still undischarged — poor 
Charlotte Stuart, who paid so great a price, — and that 
therefore, in this life of mine, I have settled the account 
against her. 

I know now that she did wrong, but they 
loved Monmouth, Lady Wentworth and Madame 
Stuart, and their sinful love won him from a life 
of sin. Doubtless they did evil that good might 



James Duke or Monmouth. 































The Love of Lady Wentworth 273 

come, asking “shall soul not somehow pay for 
soul?” 

Nothing is worth having in this world or out of 
it that one does not pay for, and the more one pays, 
the more it*is worth having. So believed Henrietta 
Baroness Wentworth of Nettlestead. So I believed 
and believe. 


BOTHWELL 


BRIG 



CHAPTER XVI 


BOTHWELL BRIG 

Be it for me to behold you again in dying, 

Hills of Home! — and hear again the call, 

Hear about the graves on the moorland the peewits flying, 

— And hear no more at all. 

R. L. S. 

The Covenanters rose in Scotland in May 1679. 
Things had begun to go badly between Charles and 
Monmouth, and on the top of my worries came civil 
war in my country. Do not tell me that a Scot is 
not always ready to fight another Scot, clan rises 
against clan, feuds never die out, but I had been born 
in 1640, and the saints know civil war was the night- 
mare of my earlier life! Shaftesbury, as President of 
the Privy Council, presently put forward Monmouth, 
who was Captain-General, all was settled secretly 
and hurried forward. I knew my son’s regiment was 
to go, I knew Monmouth was going in command 
of the forces, but I expected to see neither of them 
before they went. All I knew was that Frances had 
a French lady of Louis’s Court, an old friend, staying 
with her at that moment, mightily full of several new 
dances. She proposed to teach us — Queen Catherine 
was much interested ; enfin, between her and the 
Duchess I was bidden to go and learn (or help teach) 
with the rest. 

I was in a somewhat strange frame of mind; over 
me hung a cloud that, for all my arguments and self- 
persuasion, I could not banish. I did not want to be 
277 


278 


My Two Kings 


plagued with this French madame, I did not even 
want to dance, but I was commanded, and so, with 
the meekness of an inwardly cross lamb, I suffered my 
woman to dress me. 

“Now, see here,” said I, “I’m nearly forty and 
might be left in peace; they won’t do it, therefore I 
won’t look forty, my good wench! Give me the new 
rouge and that fresh box of patches, and lay me out 
the little gown with the violets.” 

So I made my face with immense care, lashes and 
brows ever so deftly darkened, the ceruse laid on till 
it looked like the fresh complexion that was my best 
feature in my twenties, and truly, but for my grey 
curls, through which I ran a violet ribbon, I might 
well have been in my twenties still! The dress was 
a bluish-white silk on thin texture, but worked upon 
it here and here were scattered violets; it was worn 
over a petticoat of my own lace-work, again sup- 
ported by another of violet hue; about my shoulders 
was twisted a gold and violet striped gauze scarf, 
and, to finish all, fixed by my sapphire and amethyst 
Tudor clasp set in heavy gold. I laughed as I looked 
at myself in the mirror. “About fifteen years too 
young in dress — and deportment,” I said. “On 
their heads be it,” and I went through into my 
parlour. 

There was no light there, only the dying June 
evening shone over the great river that I was never 
tired of looking at. I leant my elbows on the sill, 
clasped my hands, and looked out. This desperate 
sense of something evil ! — it terrified as well as angered 
me. I called to my maid. “Go, fetch me a cordial,” 
I said, “I am none too well to-night. Leave the outer 
door ajar, then I need not answer it. The Duchess 
of Richmond may come in on her way; she said she 
would if ’twere possible.” 

So I stood and looked out over the river, a girlish 


Bothwell Brig 


279 


figure with hair, as it were, thickly powdered, and 
waited, and wondered for what I was waiting. 

The outer door swung open, a soft, swift step crossed 
my floor (but no rustle of silken skirts), some one 
came behind me, a pair of arms encircled me and 
quick hands grasped my wrists, a warm cheek rested 
against mine. 

“Sweet cousin, I come to say ‘Good-bye,’ ” said a 
gentle voice. “Good-bye, only for a very little while. 
Have you any message for Scotland?” 

The strong, slender hands pulled me back till I 
stood upright, drawn back against laces and a curled 
(if short) peruke that just touched my bare shoulders 
as its owner leant forward. 

“Silly little pulses,” said Monmouth, pressing my 
wrists with his fingers, “they flutter like caught birds. 
You are not afraid?” 

“I don’t know, James,” I said, with a long, quiver- 
ing sigh. “Yes, I am afraid, but what I fear I can’t 
tell you. I wish you’d tell me!” 

He gave a little laugh into the masses of curls that 
adorned each side of my head, as the vogue still was — 
he was an everlastingly caressing creature who had 
been petted by, and had petted, women all his life. 
“I can tell you one thing, you need have no fears for 
me. 

My door opened again, and into my room walked, 
without any more ceremony, a tall young man in uni- 
form, and stood looking at us. I wrenched myself 
from James’s clasp, I ran round the table and threw 
my arms about his neck. “Oh, Ian!” I cried, “so you 
have come after all?” 

I do not think my son ever received me more 
coldly than he did that time. He let me put my 
arms round his neck and stand on tip-toe to kiss him, 
but all the while he was looking over my head at 
James, a silhouette against the dusky windows, a sil- 


280 


My Two Kings 


houette that did nothing, but, somewhat to my amuse- 
ment, swore! I took in the whole scene in a glance. 
I went to the centre table, struck flint and steel, lit 
my golden-copper Dutch lamp and, as it burned up, 
dropped both my hands on the table and looked, smil- 
ing, from one to the other. With his back to the 
window stood Monmouth, in simplest of riding gear — 
buff suit, long boots, a laced cravat but a very simple 
one, his coat not unbuttoned enough to show his 
Garter ribbon, his Star hidden by a buff travelling 
cloak of ample cut, and a big felt hat crowned 
with a swirling mass of black feathers. Opposite him, 
his back to the door, in full uniform, was my son, a 
tall, serious-faced, black Scot, topping me by a head 
and Monmouth by an inch or two, very quiet, and, as 
I knew perfectly well, in a dangerous humour. Then, 
as the lamplight flooded the little room, heels were 
clicked and there was a smart salute, and something 
of the tension relaxed. Monmouth, easy, smiling, 
never embarrassed, took it and burst out laughing, as 
I did. 

“Oh, Ian,” I cried again, “our cousin, the Duke. 

Your Captain-General, my dear! Did you think ? 

Oh, what did you not think? of your mother, nine 
years his senior — and you might trust her by 
now !” 

My boy moved round the table and took my hand. 
“Forgive me,” he said, and he bowed deeply to Mon- 
mouth. 

“Forgive?” cried that same gentleman. “Now 
damme if appearances aren’t against all of us. I ” 

“You,” I said, “you were thirty last month and 
you look twenty-three. I ” 

“Madame ma cousine, I do not care what your 
age is, I can only say that you look as if you were 
twenty-three with powdered hair — and this gentle- 
man ?” 


Bothwell Brig 


281 


“This gentleman is my son,” I said, “and he is 
twenty-three! He looks the age you really are.” 

Ian laughed. “So what’s to be done about it, sir?” 
he said. 

It was a strange situation. In another five or six 
years’ time I was to look an old woman, but then I 
did not, and in my girlish dress I was aware of it. 
My son had never resembled me at all, except that, 
I was amused to see, his hair was rapidly greying in 
true Stuart style. He was very tall, with big bones, 
dark, hawk-featured, but long of face, a perfect 
Celtic type if ever I saw one, and a look in his eyes 
as he spoke to you that went out — beyond — somewhat 
in the way an eagle looks, a dreamer, a scout, a born 
soldier, as he was. He had fought constantly since 
he was fifteen; he was never happy unless he was 
fighting. Of course he was going to Scotland, whether 
his regiment went or no ! Captain Ian Stuart, had the 
Fates been kind, you might have gone farther than 
Scotland, I think. Yet I thank Heaven you did not. 
To have been a British soldier six years later . . . ! 
You- — and I — were spared that. 

“Your son?” cried the youthful Commander-in- 

Chief. “Well, Madame, if you say so ! He goes 

north? Then he goes with me! Come, sir, come, my 
kinsman, I’ve room for an A.D.C. Will that suit 
you ?” 

Ian came round the table and took Monmouth’s 
hand without a word and kissed it — as if he had been 
the King himself. I looked on, and a shiver went 
through me. 

“Take care of him, James,” I said softly, feeling 
proud and a little happier; I hoped that on Mon- 
mouth’s staff my son might be safer, just as any 
mother wishes who wants her boy to be in the midst 
of it all, yet unscathed. 

So we stood. 


282 


My Two Kings 


And at that moment, to my despair, came one of 
the Queen’s pages summoning me to dance, and I 
dared not wait any longer. I caught up fan and 
gloves, I kissed Ian, I was as frankly kissed by Mon- 
mouth, and flew after my guide through the maze of 
dimly lit passages to the Royal apartments, and so 
into the whirl of the dance before I had time for further 
thought. 

Towards the end of the evening I was summoned 
by the King — not to dance: it seemed he wished to 
speak to me. 

“Well, my dear,” he said, “so James has got your 
boy?” (The King knew everything always.) 

“Yes, Sire,” I replied. “I hope he’ll serve you well; 
he has hitherto.” 

Charles looked at me with night-dark eyes, con- 
sidering, comprehending, and said nothing. He took 
my hand and led me across the dancing-room and 
to a big window open to the June evening; flowers 
filled the air with scent from the gardens below, a 
galaxy of stars danced in the deepening blue above 
our heads. 

“He’ll serve me well,” he said shortly; “have no 
fear of that.” 

“I have none,” I replied ; and, as I spoke, back in a 
rush flooded my incomprehensible terror. I turned and 
looked up at him. 

“Sire, this will be but a little campaign. After it 
is over you shall laugh at me, and tell me how much 
a fool I was to be afraid.” 

The black eyes still held mine. “I send my son 
to fight for me, and I too am afraid,” said Charles 
quietly. “No, not as you are; James will never die 
on the field of battle. That I know. My one hope is, 
my lady, that I shall not live to see how he doth die.” 

I stared at him; I felt the ceruse on cheeks and lips 
standing out where all the rest was ashy white. 


Bothwell Brig 


283 


“So to each his own fear,” said Charles, and then 
he took my elbow. “You give me your son, do you? 
Very well, whatever befall — remember this: that there 
is one thing that a King can never repay to his sub : 
jects, he cannot give the mothers back their sons.” 

“Sire,” I said, “you too in turn remember this : 
We cry upon Heaven for them, upon Fate ; upon Death, 
we never fall on our knees before our Sovereign and 
say, ‘Give us back our boys.’ It is a gift for ever 
and ever.” 

He looked at me once, he never said anything, he 
simply led me across the ball-room to the door. 

“Go back and go directly to your bed,” he said 
softly, “or you will break down.” 

He knew that much. He felt the forerunner of a 
passion of tears fall on his hand as I kissed it; my 
hurried flight back to my lodgings checked but for 
an instant the storm that would come and have its 
way. So I lay face downwards on my bed and cried 
and cried, and yet I laughed through my tears. 

“I’ve done that for you, Charles,” I whispered, “I’ve 
given you my son. I shall never ask for him back. 
He’s yours !” 

And so he remained, a gift for ever and ever. 

Bothwell Brig was soon over, and Monmouth soon 
back again among ever-growing difficulties and differ- 
ences. And the rift between him and his father grew 
and grew, and nothing was ever the same any more. 

Charles’s love endured, and now and then, for weeks 
at a time, Monmouth was the spoiled darling, the 
favoured son he used to be; but the months and the 
years as they passed took him farther and farther from 
Charles, and I knew it. 

So Ian went to Scotland, and did not come away. 
He asked for nothing more than to live and die fight- 
ing. He had his will, and therefore I, his mother, asked 
nothing more of Life or Death for him. 


284 


My Two Kings 


Monmouth, immediately after his return to White- 
hall, told me all there was to tell and was very kind 
in his own foolish, loveable, tactless way. What did 
the folly and the tactlessness matter to me? I knew 
he was sorry for my bitter loss, that was all I cared 
about. He said much; and if he said too much — if 
he said the right thing wrongly — all that signified was 
that it was the right thing. 

And Charles said nothing at all. 

But when I saw him next, he passed me in the gallery 
as I went to the Queen, the centre of a group of his 
gentlemen, laughing and jesting with them. As our 
eyes met, his merriment ceased abruptly; he stood still 
and swept off his great plumed hat to the floor, in the 
deep bow of a subject to a Sovereign, before his aston- 
ished Court. Once again I could not thank him — but 
in these pages I thank him now. 


“ST. STEPHEN’S BY ST. ALBANS” 


CHAPTER XVII 


“st. Stephen’s by st. aebans” 

For the Stuarts were crowns that they could not win, 

For the Stuarts, thrones they could never hold, 

For the Stuarts, dishonour and wanton sin. 

For the Stuarts, love that can ne’er be told! 

Love that is god-like, love that is gold, 

Love that recks not of bar or bond, 

Love that endures when the heart grows cold, 

And into the Life Beyond! 

(“King Monmouth”) 
M. N. 

When I had once won Henrietta Wentworth to love 
me, and she had thrown her cap over the mill finally 
as regards Monmouth, and had set herself steadily 
to reform him while sacrificing herself in the eyes of 
morality, and of that most immoral Court ! the 
explosion could not be long delayed; and, as we are 
told, “the Lady Philadelphia” found out the truth 
and whirled her daughter out of town in a passion 
at the beginning of 1680. As a matter of fact, this 
was done partly because she was disappointed that 
Monmouth was not in such favour at Court as he had 
been when the love-story first began, and she wished, 
publicly, to disassociate herself from him; partly be- 
cause Lord Feversham wanted to marry Henrietta, and 
the discovery of the true state of affairs put an end 
to the negotiations with him. Also Henrietta was tak- 
ing her own line, and only force could have any effect — 
outwardly. But things did not happen as “Sacharissa” 
writes. 

I had a house near St. Albans, and I retired to that 
287 


288 


My Two Kings 


after Bothwell Brig. You know that Monmouth fled 
down the Watling Street when he went to Toddington 
in 1683. Then he wrote in his pocket-book that he 
passed through St. Stephens’s, a most interesting old 
church and a group of houses, hardly a village. There 
was a farm, there is still a farm, a smallish house be- 
hind part of a solid and lengthy stretch of very old 
wall opposite the church, and this was my country 
home then: just a tiny property close to the road, 
with its barns and stabling, some land, and a delightful 
garden — looking towards Gorhambury. 

When Philadelphia was supposed to have fetched 
her daughter back to Toddington, as a matter of fact 
she did nothing of the kind. She meant to, but she 
was foiled! She sent her coach (she had been at 
Toddington for some time herself, or she would have 
known earlier how things really were) and a handful 
of servants to bring Henrietta away. Henrietta, 
with surprising meekness, wrote to her mother that 
she would come, and left London as arranged; but 
as soon as she arrived at my gates, she stopped the 
coach, told the servants she was taken ill, and sent 
them to ask me to come out to her aid. I was ready ! 
Out I went, pretending to be horrified when I saw 
her, insisted on her coming in to rest and refresh her- 
self, ordered refreshments for her people, and, before 
they knew what had happened, J had her safe in my 
house, and Philadelphia’s retinue, becoming uneasy, 
and on trying to “collect” their young mistress to 
proceed to Toddington, suddenly found the gates shut 
in their faces, and, to their dismay, half a dozen of 
Monmouth’s Guards removing her ladyship’s baggage 
from the coach and politely but firmly speeding 
empty vehicle and empty-handed servants towards 
the fury of Philadelphia up the road eleven miles 
away. 

Everything had been arranged beforehand. Those 


“St. Stephen's hy St. Albans ” 


289 


at Whitehall who were interested knew I was making 
a stay in the country to settle my little estate; you 
knew, naturally, I need not say, and Charles of course 
knew, as I had gone to him with Monmouth and told 
him all the facts, and that I proposed to keep Henri- 
etta with me till after her child’s birth. Monmouth 
being (publicly) very much out of favour with his 
father, but secretly as good friends as ever, although 
nominally deprived of all his commands and high 
places, was still quite able to produce a troop of horse 
when necessary! Charles, who loathed Philadelphia, 
chuckled so much over the idea of my kidnapping her 
daughter on the way home, that all was easy to work. 
I admit Monmouth and I had to stand an absolute 
outburst of laughter from His Majesty! — I especially 
coming in for banter; Charles always used to have 
a dig at me, and, on paper, this affair of his son’s was 
no better than all the others which I never would 
deal with except to help him out of — but behind the 
laughter (in which Monmouth and I joined) we all 
three knew the difference , and: “So you snap your 
fingers at the old lady? — none so old in her own 
estimation, eh?” and Charles glanced sidelong 
at us both, we knowing perfectly well that Phila- 
delphia, incurably ambitious and still handsome, had 
set her cap at him when she first came to town with 
her daughter some six years before, and had had the 
mortification of realising he had apparently never 
noticed it! He had, and so had we, and we had 
laughed at the time — this, I think, accounted for some 
of Henrietta’s early antagonism towards me. She had 
loved Monmouth from the first, so of course she for- 
gave him — she did not forgive me, I was a woman. 
She never cared for her mother, but she had seen her 
discomfited, and I had laughed, and — but she knew 
me better later. 

I think, if Henrietta Wentworth ever had any love 


290 


My Two Kings 


to spare for any woman, it was for me during the last 
five years of her short life. 

Mine was a pleasant little house behind its high 
walls; there were sheltered walks beneath yew hedges, 
a typical Hertfordshire cedar, an orchard full of fruit 
trees, and it was all hidden from the road by its farm 
buildings and the great wall. Early spring though 
it was, my parlour caught all the sun, streaming across 
the broad fields and the spreading woods that shut 
out Gorhambury. 

Henrietta and I would pace up and down in the 
sunshine, she, waiting for her summer, in all the glow 
and wonder of the spring for which she had waited 
so long; I, at last of real use to my beloved James, 
knowing that at the same time I pleased Charles, able, 
in their happiness, to forget (sometimes) that not only 
were my spring and summer taken from me, but that 
my autumn had found me a barren tree. 

Of course we saw no one — country visitors, even 
Monmouth’s friends in St. Albans (for he had always 
been used to run up and down constantly), meant 
nothing to me after the company at Whitehall; be- 
sides, it was too much of a hotbed of Jenningses and 
Churchills for my taste! This must read strangely 
since I am descended from Arabella Churchill, but 
the self that lived in Charles’s Court was quite another 
me, and apart, even, from James II. Also, I wished 
to keep Henrietta’s presence a secret from my neigh- 
bours. 

Philadelphia once came over in a towering rage, 
and to her intense surprise, as I afterwards heard 
was admitted, but all she found was myself in the 
parlour and a couple of guards at the foot of the 
stairs ! — I, quite placid and serene, receiving her 
simply, and naturally, as if I were the last person in 


“St. Stephen's by St. Albans" 


291 


the world to grab her only daughter and then hide 
her. She had to sit down and talk quietly; I refused, 
with increasingly cool manner and lowered voice — 
lowered as hers heightened! — with a Carolinely cynical 
smile on the top of everything, to have anything to 
do with her unless she complied. I told her I meant 
to keep her daughter with me, and I could do so (I 
said it to her face) unaided; if she wished for a trial 
of strength, why she might talk to the soldiers in the 
hall, but for myself I would wish her good-day and a 
pleasant return journey, and so I stood up and curtsied, 
and she gave in. After all, she knew if there was an 
object in avoiding a “scandal” (hardly possible when 
one thought of her own life) at Toddington, it was 
infinitely better for Henrietta to be safe with me, and 
yet out of the gossip of town. She was no fool when 
she was shown how to be sensible, and she, too, was 
afraid of me when she realised what I stood for with 
the King of Monmouth. 


But another day was much nicer ! 

There was a bustle in the road outside, wheels, the 
jingling of harness, men’s voices, then a woman’s 
speaking, at which I looked out of the window, and 
then a masculine laugh, which brought the quick 
blood to Henrietta’s pale cheeks, and my faithful 
woman was in the room. “Oh, Madame, oh, milady, 
it is his Grace and Mistress Carey!” and I was in 
the little hall, to find you at the modest front door, 
charming and sparkling in a lovely sea-blue cloak 
and hood, lined with brown fur and carrying a big 
muff, and Monmouth, ( a sicht for sair e’en,’ all in buff 
cloth with a deep orange sash, and a great buff cloak 
lined with orange — the blue of his Garter ribbon 
showing as he swung off his hat joyously. I was 
hugging you, and only just aware that Monmouth 


292 


My Two Kings 


had put a hand on either of my shoulders from behind, 
kissed my hair, and was away past us down the hall 
to the door of the parlour, which closed on him and 
Henrietta, leaving you and me, laughing and talking 
both at once. My maids and Monmouth’s men were 
fussing about inside and out of the entrance, in all 
the pleasant bustle of arrival that must have made 
the old days so delightful. No, the coach was to go 
on into St. Albans and be put up at the George Inn, 
only one of his Grace’s men remaining (my maids 
were disappointed, but I was not altogether sorry!) 
to be at hand when needed, and I, after a hur- 
ried message to my kitchen, whirled you up to my 
room. 

“Now, your news! How goes it all? His Majesty? 
Ah, James will tell me — when I see James! You — 
you rash woman, running down here like this in his 
coach with him for all the world to see! Oh, I dare 
say you did pull that hood well over your head and 

wear your mask; but really ! and such a hood, 

why nobody at Court has another sea-blue. French, 
of course, and the newest embroidered gloves from 
Martial’s — trust Careys to get French things. My 
dear, you’ve put on your best clothes to run away 
with James. Fie! But I am sure you both enjoyed 
it, and it was all the more fun in that it was an 
innocent escapade, hey? — think of eloping with James 
pour le bon motif! Does His Majesty know you were 
coming? Know? he told you to come? to put all our 
kind friends off the scent? I’faith, they will be off 
on another scent — hue and cry after you! What said 
you to the King?” 

“Sire,” you answered, as well as you could for 
laughing, “I shall look to you to clear my name in 
Whitehall if need be”; and he returned, “Madame, 
do you not think your name can clear itself without 
any assistance of mine? for I doubt if my assistance 


“St. Stephen's by St. Albans ” 


293 


would do anything but hinder!” (“Indeed, Charles 
as a clearer of anybody’s character is mightily divert- 
ing,” I added in parenthesis, and you replied in the 
same, “Yes, that is why I asked him!”) 

“It is terrible,” you went on to me, “to be held 
up as such a shining light of virtue. Why, it leads 
me into positions like this.” 

“That’s the worst of virtue, my dear,” I retorted; 
“it has its drawbacks. It is so useful to those who 
haven’t any. That poor child under my wing? Ah, 
it’s no question of ‘virtue’ or of ‘vice’ with her, it’s 
one man out of all the world, and the rest of us merely 
accessories, or drawbacks, or of no account whatsoever. 
We’re shadows — kind shadows, even you and I, even 
the King. One man — and is he a man? I’ve known 
James so long.” 

“So has she.” 

“Yes, she’s known James as all the other women’s 
lover; I’ve known him as James; but now, she knows 
the J ames she’s made of him.” 

“And what is that?” you asked. 

“Only she knows,” I said, and laid down your 
cloak on my bed. “Don’t let us be serious yet. 

And — ah, my dear, your frock! The cloak was 

cruel enough to a country dowd like me,” and I 
glanced down at my black woollens, “but this, 
too. His Majesty must have provided you with a 
trousseau to fly with James. That bronze-coloured 
silk and those little bunches of coloured flowers 
all over it, are they worked by hand? No, 

woven in — more French goods. Egad, Madame, 
are you in the pay of His most Christian 

Majesty Louis? Oh, I’ll tell you a tale! M. Bar- 
rillon ‘approached’ me once when first I came to 
Whitehall. A silver lace dress — exquisite. ‘Sir,’ 
I said, ‘I take it kindly of your master; will you 
give him my most grateful compliments in re- 


294 


My Two Kings 


turn,’ and he looked much taken aback. ‘No more 
than your grateful compliments, Madame?’ he in- 
quired pointedly. ‘Why, sir,’ I laughed, ‘we English 
once sold you Dunkirk, now your king is turned shop- 
keeper with insignificant ladies like me? His goods 
come to the wrong address, I fear, let me re-direct 
them,’ and I opened my doors and drew him into the 
gallery — pointing down it in the direction of another 
set of rooms — you know whose. ‘My woman shall carry 
the gown there, sir, 5 I said. ‘It would not fit me, 5 
and I bowed him out. Charles? Oh, Charles was 
angry with me — the only time! ‘Your Majesty, 5 I 
said to him, ‘look you, I can serve you better than 
that. Which of your fair ladies would not that gown 
fit? King Louis will write me off his list as useless — 
too good, too stupid. Sire, I am not too good, I am 
not too stupid — forgive me, and wait. I will serve you 
better than that! 5 

“And I have served him better. I have cheated 
France, I have plotted and listened and worked and 
lied for him. Charles knows ! I had those self-same 
silver skirts swept contemptuously over my feet at 
the next ball, while I was purposely dressed in dowdy 
brown ‘atlas. 5 But I had the laugh! And Bar- 
rillon was there, and caught my eye as the silver 
skirts flounced past. He bowed deeply and per- 
mitted himself one glare at me, afterwards! He did 
not understand; he thought me too good, too stupid. 
I’d hang at Tyburn cheerfully for Charles, and 
probably shall. Come into the garden, my friend, 
there are few flowers to see, but I’ve no parlour to 
offer you — yet ” and we went downstairs merrily, arm 
in arm. 

“Such shoes ! that new French shoemaker his 
Grace patronises; I know his cut. It is lucky the 
coach did not break down, they would not be en- 
hanced by Hertfordshire mud. Slip on a pair of my 


“St. Stephen's by St. Albans ” 


295 


gardening buskins,” and we went out into the yellow 
sunlight, with the blue-black cedar up against a pale 
sky and the foxy-brown of the beech hedges and the 
purple and grey of the woods beyond. 

“James looks well,” I remarked. “I believe he is 
happy for the first time, before, he was only enjoying 
himself.” 

The soft murmur of voice came through the mul- 
lioned window of the parlour, farther on, from my 
kitchen premises, the rather less subdued chatter of 
my excited maids with His Grace’s footman. I 
laughed. 

“Look,” I said, “there is Pre Wood. Beyond that 
is Gorhambury, the seat of that wise old gentleman 
Sir Harbottle Grimston — Speaker — Master of the 
Rolls. He helped bring the King over, and he is 
ending his life as he has led it all along, in an open 
detestation of popery. He is a very old man now, he 
will not live to see a popish king on the throne. Shall 
we? But I am always getting back to serious sub- 
jects. Dinner will be served directly. Well, I have 
had a chance to see you at last. What are your plans ? 
Go you back to-night? James is sending you back 
in his coach? My dear, I wish I could keep you, but 
I have not a corner now — James stays here, I suppose; 
he knows he can come and go as he pleases. Will you 
be safe alone? But perhaps,” and here we both burst 
out laughing, “it will be better for you to return alone 
than with James!” 

“Why, no,” you said. “Had we returned together 
the world would have said he repented of the trip and 
had turned back with me!” 

“And if you arrive by yourself, the world will 
say you repented of the trip and have turned back 
without him,” and we went towards the house, still 
laughing. 

The parlour window opened and Monmouth leant 


296 


My Two Kings 


out. (I could see Henrietta’s face, no longer pale, 
but beautifully flushed, over his shoulder.) “Ladies, 
ladies !” said he, shaking his curls at us, “this is 
frivolous. I bring you Mistress Carey to wait on 
you, cousin — kind Mistress Carey, who accompanies 
me into exile” (a glance back at Henrietta, full of 
mischief) — “and you treat it all as a joke. I hear 
you laughing upstairs, and then you come laughing 
downstairs and you walk together and talk scandal 
beneath the windows till I am grieved to the heart 
and — am consumed with curiosity to know what you 
are saying!” 

“Were we talking of anything to interest James?” 
I asked you. “Surely one theme was Madame Carey’s 
character? — or was it popery? — or was it dinner? 
That should be interesting to your Grace. Come, 
will you hand Madame Carey in to the dining-room?” 
and I slipped Henrietta’s hand under my arm, and 
she pressed it, laughing softly and smiling, and look- 
ing at you and Monmouth as we stood back and made 
you both lead the way. She only looked at me, and 
said nothing, but her look was enough. “Isn’t he 
adorable?” it said. 

Truly he was! I loved him, I had always loved 
him, even without being in love with him ; so what must 
have he been to her with whom he had found love for 
the first time? — after her wait, her long wait, years 
and years, till he should find it, and her with it. 

“Mistress Carey vows she is not hungry, but I 
am !” he was saying. “Why, she would have 
nothing when we changed horses at Astra” (Elstree) ; 
“not so much as a cup of chocolate. I tell you, I 
swallowed my ‘morning’ so fast, not to keep her 
waiting without, that our good landlady shook her 
head over me. ‘Your Grace my lord Duke,’ she 
said, ‘you’re in a mighty hurry. That’s not doing 
justice to good ale.’ ‘A lady waits me, wife,’ I 


“St. Stephen's by St. Albans ” 


297 


replied. e Ah, my lord, does she so ? But if you 
strangle, she’ll have to wait the longer.’ Think if I 
had strangled,” he suggested seriously to you. “Why, 
what then?” 

“I should have returned to the King, sir,” you said 
demurely, “and have informed His Majesty that you 
had put our kind friends off the scent for good and 
all!” 

So we ate my simple fare, and we all sat over the 
fire in the dying light while the footman went into 
St. Albans for the coach, and when it came, you were 
wrapped up warmly and bestowed in it, and His 
Grace’s servants given every instruction for your 
safety; and so you drove away and James and I went 
back up the flagged path to the house. As we, went, 
he took my elbow. “She’s well, she’s happy, she’s 
safe here,” he said (I am afraid you had passed from 
his thoughts as soon as he shut the door on you) ! 
“Shall I go now, dear? or can you put up with me 
for twenty-four hours?” 

“Twenty-four years, James,” I smiled, “if you will. 
This house is yours.” 

“It holds my heart,” he said, “my heart, and my 
kindest friend — and peace, for a space. There is no 
peace elsewhere,” and he sighed. 

“There is no peace for us when we court war,” I 
returned, looking straight at him, “but leave war and 
‘elsewhere’ alone for to-night, at any rate. You need 
think of no one but her, oh, not me, no, you needn’t 
think of me, nor even of yourself!” and I gave him 
a little flick with my finger under his cleft chin, quite 
a long way up for me to reach. “Go in and tell 
Henrietta you love her.” 

“But she knows it,” he said, standing still in the 
dusk of the porch looking down at me with shining 
eyes. 

“Doubtless,” I answered, “but I’ll wager she’d 


298 


My Two Kings 


like to hear it again. Why, you’ve been away from 
her at least five minutes,” and we went indoors to- 
gether. 

A while later I was in my room, changing my plain 
heavy blacks for something lighter and less gloomy 
before supper. I think I envied you a little, rolling 
back along the old Roman road to the lights of 
London — to the old life I had left a few months back, 
and yet, it seemed, for years. You were to be present 
at a concert the next night that the King would 
attend (at Prince Rupert’s, in his beautiful saloon), 
and I knew he would be certain of a veiled word or 
two with you. “Ah, Madame Carey, so you do not 
desert us for ever? Has the country no attractions 
after all?” and he would laugh and show his splendid 
teeth, and you would curtsey (in your latest evening 
gown of pale primrose satin, with a gauze scarf of 
ivory, primrose and black twisted in your hair with 
a long dangling tassel to your shoulder, your locks 
turned waving back in the new mode, rather high, with 
a careless loose curl or two) — curtsey, and smile, half 
behind a fan of primrose feathers with a tiny mirror 
in the centre — the very latest — and dimple, and inter- 
ject, “None for me, Sire; others” — you would pause 
imperceptibly — “others find happiness there, but give 
me your company!” 

And Charles, shaking all over, catching your mean- 
ing at once, but inclined to disguise the play between 
him and you all the better by taking would-be knowing 
courtiers into his confidence (apparently), would look 
at the faces round about him, and retort, “Oddsfish, 
you have it, Madame, for what it’s worth!” and 
everybody would laugh at the prudish Madame Carey 
who yet eloped with the Duke and told His Majesty 
she couldn’t live without him! — and nobody but you 
two would understand one word. Oh, those games 
that we played with Charles, you and I. History 


“St. Stephen's by St. Albans" 


299 


says naught of them, for History saw naught. His- 
tory has only enhaloed Mrs. Godolphin because she 
never would talk to the King, but we talked, aye, and 
we acted, and we deceived the clever bad men and an- 
noyed the clever bad women, and Charles literally 
revelled in it. 


I don’t think anybody ever caught you out — and 
only once me. That was at another evening at 
Prince Rupert’s — Prince Rupert, half Stuart himself, 
shadow of his past brave days, old, ill, wrapped up 
in his mezzo-tinting and his chymical experiments, 
doting father of that exquisite left-handed Stuart, 
his daughter Ruperta — and I know we (even I) were 
prone to think he saw nothing too. Just such an 
incident had occurred — it was a little later, after my 
return to London. I had brought Charles news of 
Monmouth in the same way, all in public, had given 
him the desired intelligence by letting him tease and, 
in company, utterly confound me, and had got up a 
most creditable blush of confusion (really a flush of 
triumph!) as I fell back and he passed laughing on, 
with Barrillon and Sunderland, enjoying my supposed 
discomfiture, at his heels. 

And as I drew aside, I found myself by my host, 
and realised he had been watching the by-play a 
little apart, and he glanced at me out of his long 
melancholy eyes (some of his portraits are Mary Queen 
of Scots, his great-grandmother, to the life) and 
murmured, “Ah, Madame Stuart, a diplomatist was 
lost in you.” 

“In me, Highness?” I replied in the same tone. “How 
cruel of you to say dost,’ on the top of His Majesty’s 
satire. See how meekly I take my setting-down! I 
might have known a silly old woman like me would 
provoke the Court’s derision.” 


300 


My Tzvo Kings 


But he put a hand on my shoulder and patted it 
in a fatherly way — Prince Rupert was quite twenty 
years my senior. “Nay, my dear lady, none so old, 
none so silly, none so useless — never say that of a 
Stuart to a Stuart.” 

“Oho !” I thought to myself, “here is a man who 
sees what he looks at, and hears what he listens to.” 
Aloud I said, “Mon prince, you are a Stuart, a soldier, 
a scientist, and an artist, also, like me, a looker-on. 
Thank you!” 

I think that was the last time I had any talk with 
his Highness ; his health broke altogether soon after 
and he died before long. But no — once more we met 
and talked at ease, for he asked you and me to spend 
the day in his apartments in Spring Gardens, which 
we did with intense joy, and he showed us all his 
treasures and his discoveries, and, later, told us stories 
of his wild boy- and young-man-hood, and at the end 
he gave me a tiny illuminated Booh of Hours that 
had belonged to the Winter Queen, and you an ex- 
ample of his engraving, and he said something to us 
both before we departed, standing all three together 
in one of the windows flooded with summer sunshine. 
He was plainly and even shabbily attired, with none 
of his youthful fascination and finery left, and you 
and I, the one in black and purple striped silk, the 
other in beech-leaf-brown taffeta, stood on each side 
of him. He looked from you to me, and then he put 
a long sensitive hand, albeit stained with the results 
of his hobbies, on each of our arms. 

“Ladies,” he said, “forgive a garrulous old man 
whose day is over, and who is despised by the present 
generation — all these young wits and bloods, these 
fickle fine dames. I know you for something else, the 
King’s friends. Madame Carey, I would you could 
be more at Court. His Majesty has need of such as 
you, but your post is elsewhere? Well, he is the loser. 


“St. Stephen's by St. Albans ” 


301 


Madame Stuart, you” — he gave a sudden twinkle 
amazingly like Charles, whom I never thought he re- 
sembled — “you run your little errands and wear these 
wintry tresses” — he touched the curl on my shoulder 
— “to show you’re past the game, eh? the game they 
play, these young gallants and frail ladies the King 
spends all his public time with !” 

“Why, sir,” I said, “wintry tresses are the only 
wear when the snows have begun to fall; I’m obliged 
to look forty in the face, and I might as well be four 
hundred, might I not, in Whitehall? But if I were 
twenty, sir, of what use could I be to him? And, 
sir, we — he and I — are both glad I’m forty, see 
you?” 

“Oh, aye, I see,” said Prince Rupert, with a wise 
smile. “It’s a good age for a good woman and a good 
friend.” 

“Oh, but I’m not good, Highness!” I said indig- 
nantly, knowing he would understand exactly, and he 
laughed. 

“No,” he said, “not good, of course, your pardon, 
no Stuart was ever good. But still, you’re good for 
Charles,” and he laughed at the phrase, “and Mistress 
Carey is better — she leaves your errands alone.” 

“Does she?” I said, emboldened — I knew we could 
trust Rupert — “do you, cherie?” and you replied, 
smiling at us both, “Oh yes, of course; I only run 
on my own.” And we all laughed together. He gave 
our wrists a little squeeze and a shake, the Stuart 
trick. 

“Ah, well, Mesdames, you’re active yet, but remem- 
ber — hasten slowly. No woman ever recollected not 
to run too fast." 

“Did she not?” you asked. “But, sir, if she runs 
too slowly she will be caught !” 

“Not when she runs errands,” smiled Rupert back 
at you. “Only when she runs from a man.” We 


802 My Two Kings 

looked at each other and tried to be serious in 
vain. 

“Sir, sir!” I said, “you’ll never think that of us; 
why ” 

“Never,” said Rupert, “never. Had I thought you 
in that danger, should I have warned you to slacken 
your pace? You may win laurels in other ways than 
Daphne’s,” and he kissed our hands, and we made him 
the deep Royal curtsey. 

“Now we must do more running — running away,” 
I remarked. “Not for our lives — no, for our reputa- 
tions! It grows quite dark, Highness, and we have 
been here hours, oh, but hours.” 

“Time also hastens,” said Prince Rupert. “Come 
again, and cheer a slow old man who once travelled 
faster than any of these galloping Hectors.” 

“I know, sir; who does not? I think, compared 
with your life, mine is but sitting still.” 

“Aye, but there may be worse things. My cousin 
the King sits on his throne (long may he sit there) 
and I in my chimney corner.” 

“Long may you sit there, Highness !” we said, 
and went down the broad honey-coloured polished 
stairs. “We will — crawl — here again if it is your 
pleasure.” 

But we never did ; that was our last visit to Rupert 
of the Rhine. 


“Sharp eyes,” I said, looking rather hard at you 
as our coach rolled away from the door. “Sharp wits, 
and they think him an old fool on the shelf. I wonder 
if we are as wise as we think ourselves.” 

You laughed. “My Lord Rochester thinks me a 
fool,” you said. “He praised my green brocade 
with the Paris laces. He said it was a relief to his 
mind to see me in such fine clothes; he had feared I 


“St. Stephen's by St. Albans ” 


303 


was given to piety or politics, else, now he was sure 
I was as versed in the arts of coquetry as — there he 
left it!” 

“There perhaps he was wise to leave it,” I retorted. 
“But I’ll sound his lordship when next he comes to 
Court. They say he’s parlous ill, but I hope not. 
He’s mighty clever, but it’s not the clever ones that 
suspect us as a rule. They’re too clever. But I’ll 
deal with him. If he has written a lampoon on you, 
of course you’re lost (‘To Sophia, in the French man- 
ner,’ eh?). Not because of the scandal in his verse, 
but because he thought you notorious enough to write 
about. I vow when I boxed his ears ” 

“But he wrote nothing then, did he?” you asked 
in an awed voice. 

“No,” said I with a chuckle, “but I did. And not 
one soul ever knew it was I! But did he not guess, 
for who was to know it had happened? Oh, he heard 
me telling the tale to all the maids of honour the 
same evening, and — he’s a gentleman — he joined in 
and improved upon my story, and we’ve been firmer 
friends since then than ever.” 

“Heigho!” you remarked, with a sigh, “this means 
more fine clothes and further public snubbing from His 
Majesty.” 

“Indeed it does,” I replied. “It’s your turn next. 
I’ll warn him. ‘Charles, Madame Carey should be put 
in her place.’ ” 

So I did, and Charles replied, “Ah, cousin, so she 
should be, but she is never out of it.” 


\ 




WE TAKE OUR TURNS ON THE RACK 



































s 


























CHAPTER XVIII 


WE TAKE OUR TURNS ON THE RACK 

Oh then, ’tis oh then that I think there’s no hell 
Like loving too well. 

Charles II. 

“I wile not see him. Understand me, I will not. If 
you are wise, milady, you will say your prayers and 
hold 3'our tongue, but you will not meddle further 
in this matter. At least you will not trouble me. Do 
I make myself quite plain to you?” 

The smouldering eyes gleamed wickedly up under 
the lowered lids, the under lip projected — jutted — 
pressed outward by the upper, the chin was firmly 
propped by the clenched fist that supported it. The 
King was angry, and the King had a right to be. 

I was a fool, but I was no coward, for all I was 
badly scared! I had tried cajolery, diplomacy, wide- 
eyed naivete, deception so wily that it surprised even 
myself, tears a few, smiles a many — and I was beaten. 
Soundly beaten now, since my last effort cost me the 
unmasking of all my batteries, a direct personal 
request, a favour to be granted for my own sake — 
and a slap-in-the-face refusal as its answer from King 
Charles. 

“Pah ! that blockhead sends all you women crazy. 
He bamboozles Louise, and she’s a wise woman; he 
hath that featherhead Nell on his side, and she used 

to be a sensible baggage. Her poor Majesty !” 

(a quick shake of the head and a sardonic shrug). 

307 


308 My Two Kings 

“Now’s for you, Charlotte Stuart. Oddsfish, I thought 
better of you /” 

This was bad. I stood by the window of my par- 
lour, my hands, twisted together, rested on the wide 
sill, my troubled eyes roamed unseeing over the 
tumbled grey waste of Thames in flood. My Royal 
master and kinsman cast himself back in his chair, 
every line of the tall carelessly dressed figure betray- 
ing unusual irritation, and, what was worse ! a firmness 
of purpose I had done my poor best to shake, and 
had but rendered still firmer. And I was playing a 
dangerous game. I had promised Monmouth to in- 
duce his justly incensed father to accord him one more 
interview — just one. If I failed, he would swear I 
had failed him; if I really angered Charles, I should 
lose all that made life worth while to me. I stood 
between the devil and the deep sea, for Monmouth 
was desperate — and in truth he was up to his neck 
in well-merited disgrace — and Charles was adamant. 
Dear Heaven, these Stuarts! I wished I were not so 
horribly frightened; also I wished still more heartily 
that the King did not see it quite so plainly! 

There was no inspiration to be drawn from the 
grey heaving tide without. My restless glance dropped 
nervously to the honey-yellow agate bowl on the 
sill, to my tawny velvet gown with its gold laces 
and broideries of topaz in the Persian mode, a lovely 
dress which I recall I had had made in honour of the 
Prince of Hanover’s visit when he came to court — 
vainly — the wayward, stubborn Princess Anne. A 
grand dinner was just over, and I had slipped away 
as soon as I could from the Banqueting Hall and had 
returned to my own rooms, worried, weary, puzzled 
as to what I should do next, hoping for a little peace 
and time for thought — to have the King, in a most 
flinty mood, come in on my heels. In my hand I, 
still held, hurriedly crumpled, a passionate (and very 


We take our Turns on the Hack 309 

badly spelt!) billet of Monmouth’s — thrust there in 
the press by a lady whose oar pulled in that galley 
came as a shock to me! — the imploring phrases burn- 
ing themselves into my memory: 

“Bring this about and I will serve you till death.” 
And: “You have his ear; he heeds you when he will 
listen to no one else; he will see you when he is denied 
to all the world. Madame ma cousine, the sweetest 
friend I ever had, of your kind white magic conjure 
your obedient servant this miracle. I am at your 
feet as always.” “You and I know his heart; secure 
for me one moment alone with him, and I can touch 
it as of old. He will never deny you — and then he 
will never again deny me. And oh, Madame, I vow 
to you. . . .” 

A pest on it ! Only too well I knew that five 
minutes of Monmouth with Charles would mean the 
wilful way won afresh, the too kind, too lenient father 
once more as soundly bamboozled as the wise Louise, 
the shrewd Sovereign rendered as feather-headed as 
the baggage Nell. But Charles knew too; he was 
aware of his son’s power and his own powerlessness 
to resist him, the while he laughed at us women for 
being turned round that wheedling, caressing finger. 
Charles knew! I stole a fearful glance at him in the 
silence, lifting wary eyes from the contemplation of 
my gold-laced corsage. He smiled sarcastically at 
me across the room, looking diabolical. 

“Little fool,” said my beloved monarch, most un- 
kindly ! 

“A big fool, Sire,” I murmured, dropping my eyes 
again hurriedly, and pleating the folds of my gown 
in seemingly nervous fingers. “Big enough, old 
enough, to know better, but a fool in — let me say a 
numerous if not good company. Yes. Admitted we 
are beguiled, he doth work on our feelings, he trieth 
every art, but, Your Majesty, he is in downright earnest 


310 


My Two Kings 


now. Remember, Sire, never hath he been laid so 
lowly under the heavy ban of your displeasure ; never 
before have you refused, over and over, to let him say 
one word in his own defence.” 

“ One word?” ejaculated Monmouth’s father, with 
a short laugh like a bark. “One word ! He will 
hurl a thousand at me till I am deaf and dumb and 
stupid — aye, as stupid as he is. He turns my head 
to wood like his own. He used to have no tongue, 
now he is a parrot — a parrot, Madame, that reels off 
its lesson post-haste for fear of the cloak cast over its 
cage. I can throw no cloak over that young rake- 
hell’s head, no! — so I will see he doth not put it 
inside Whitehall. I want not words, I want deeds. 
I only ask of him moderately decent conduct. I have 
told him so till I am weary. He must stop these wild 
sand-gallopings up and down with avowed rebels. He 
hath sworn — oh, I’ll say that for James, he doth not 
often swear — but the last time I gave him my orders 
he cried out that ‘God might damn him if he ever 
meddled more with them,’ and I, cousin, I agreed. I 
told him I hoped he would be taken at his word! 
And now” — the King grasped the arms of his chair 
and leant forward in my direction, driving his words 
home — “hark you, as I bade James hearken. ‘Since 
we are being serious,’ I said, ‘I’ll give you this bit 
of Scriptural advice: “My son, fear thou the Lord 
and the King, and meddle not with them that are 
given to change.” ’ Yet here he is in the toils once 
more; they have him, knaves, traitors, cut-throats, re- 
publicans all. ‘Know a man by his friends,’ they say. 
James’s friends are the scum of the nation. Deny it, 
my girl ! You cannot.” 

Again he leaned his cleft chin on his fist and 
glowered venomously at me. I left the window with 
a gesture half of despair, half of repudiation of past 
arguments, a casting away of Monmouth’s allies and 


We take our Turns on the Rack 


311 


Monmouth’s methods — I went to my old position be- 
fore the fireplace, a hand on the mantelpiece, a foot 
on the hearth, and began again: 

“Your Majesty speaks the truth ” to be caught 

up delightedly by Charles. 

“Do I so?” he remarked, the snakelike glance turn- 
ing to a gleam of amusement. “Now that is indeed 
a mistake! If you can so work upon my feelings, 
mistress, as to make me forget myself thus far, it 
should be easy for you to force me into seeing James. 
But that is beyond you. You are a rash woman — do 
you guess how rash? You are pitting your power over 
me against that of her Grace of Portsmouth, against 
that gipsy Nelly’s. You think you can succeed where 
they fail? Heaven has given you a good conceit of 
yourself ! Why, tell me why, if I refuse them whom 
I love with the whole of . . . well, well, with a portion 
of my heart, should I succumb to you whom I do not 
love at all?” 


There was a deadly little hush in the room. This 
was fighting with the buttons off the foils with a 
vengeance, and we both knew it. And he was de- 
liberately hurting me, defenceless because a suppliant, 
for the reason that he was in pain himself. Dear 
Heaven, how Monmouth made us who loved him pay! 
It was nearly unendurable. 

I turned fiercely upon the King like a trapped rat 
emboldened by sheer extremity. “ Because of that, 
Your Majesty,” I replied in a tone of ice; “because 
you do not love me, because you rather dislike me, 
Sire, a silly old woman who presumes on your past 
kindness. Silly would not matter, but old? — faugh, 
I shall yawn at myself in a moment. Why, your 
courtiers would laugh at you for ever listening to me. 
Where is my dead Lord Rochester? ’Tis enough to 


312 


My Two Kings 


raise him from the grave to write another lampoon 
on you and the antique coquette who whines for your 
favour, whose favours you could never be troubled to 
seek ” 

I had lost my temper outright. No one, no, not a 
king, not the King himself, had the right to strike at 
this joint in my harness. If he had forgotten himself 
(as for one fleeting instant he had), I too would do 
some forgetting! 

“Love me?” I laughed, and faced him fairly. 
“Do you think, Sire, do you think I would have taken 
your bounty and lived under your roof, risked your 
anger and (what is much more dangerous) your 'weari- 
ness, allowed you — yes, Sire, allowed you — to come in 
and out of these rooms as you will, the door shut on 
us for hours together, your gentlemen dismissed, and 
I, Sire, at your service whenever you chose — do you 
think, your gracious Majesty, if there had ever been a 
question in your mind of gallantry between us, that 
all this would have been possible? Because you did 
not love me it has all been possible; because you do 
not love me I dare to make you hate me, and I ask 
this boon of you that the ladies you love have failed 
to procure. I tell you, Charles, without flinching, 
to your face, that you have to grant it. For justice’ 
sake see his Grace. Not as your erring son — as your 
subject who sues for pardon. Not as my kinsman, 
but as the man I love, Charles.” 

The King never took his eyes from my face all 
through this stinging speech. At its close he sat like 
a statue. I held my breath, but I still faced him. 
Then he got up very slowly and laid a heavy hand 
on each of my shoulders ; none too gently he turned 
me to the afternoon light that flowed in grey from 
the grey water, and met my fixed gaze with brows no 
less serried. 

“So you love him?” He smiled, but his teeth 


We take our Turns on the Rack 


313 


were set. “Out with it — the truth! You have said 
a hard thing to me to-day, you have accused me of 
speaking it! Now you shall speak it yourself. You 
love him? — answer me.” 

I gave a little laugh and shut my eyes. “No," I said ! 

He let one shoulder go, he held up a long thin 
finger right in front of my face, and shook it at me, 
at the same time giving a little shake of the shoulder 
he still held. 

“Now let this be a warning to you, you jade,” 
remarked Charles II. “Never you tell the truth 
again! I’ll see that damned young rogue; send him 
to Chiffinch to-night after supper, before I repent,” 
and he picked up hat and gloves and walked to the 
door. There he paused, and the man I knew came 
back to me. 

“My dear,” he added with a little crooked smile, 
“we have hurled a few — facts and fibs at each other’s 
heads this evening! I think, since we are sensible 
people, we will agree to forget most of this conversa- 
tion, eh? You did not mean to be so frank, and I 
forced you into it — h’m, a mistake, not on your part, 
on mine. Never forget to stick to a lie. It’s worse 
than useless else, and you are proved a fool. You 
knew you were one at the beginning of our talk, and 
now at the end I tell you so. And James is another, 
and I myself” — he gave a strange little turning move- 
ment of his supple wrist and looked down into the 
open palm of his right hand as if he expected to see 
something in it — “I am a knave.” 

Yes, perhaps he was. For he should never have 
made me say what I said to him that afternoon, and 
he should not have told me he did not love me, al- 
though it was true. 


Oh, what did it matter — what did I matter? Less 


314 


My Two Kings 


than nothing. Now to find James and send him 
posting to the Cabinet by the Water ere repentance 
should come to the King! Where to find them? If 
he had not been forbidden the palace, Mistress Crofts’s 
lodgings in the Stone Gallery might have yielded him 
up. I searched through his creased note — charac- 
teristic, no date, no address. Neither ink nor paper 
was that which he usually employed, but, gadzooks, 
whose were they? I raised the letter close to my face 
the better to study it — the slightest whiff of orange 
essence floated in the air. Mrs. Gwyn, for a kingdom! 
That saucy cat, flaunting her old calling — Nelly held 
her oranges under our noses and cried them, meta- 
phorically, as openly as ever. 

Monmouth was probably with her, he supped there 
on many nights; they were whole-heartedly friends 
who had once been whole-heartedly enemies. If I 
could not find him with her, perhaps she would know 
where to seek for him. So — a billet to her address. 
Nay, if he were not there, and not expected, that were 
useless. A billet to her? — but she might be abroad. 
I sighed. “A chair, I think, Madame Stuart!” I said 
to myself, and summoned my woman forthwith, com- 
manded a sedan, was wrapped in a dark mantle, duly 
masked, and set forth without flourish of trumpet from 
the sober little doorwa}^ near Will Chiflinch’s offices 
for the ex-actress’s fine house in Pall Mall. It was 
better to be one’s own messenger when running Royal 
errands. 

Mrs. Gwyn was within, yes, but she did not receive. 
Her somewhat supercilious lackey looked over my 
public chair and my none too modishly habited men, 
yawned and leant back against the doorpost. I 
drew back the curtain and spoke sharply. “Send me 
Nokes, my good fool,” and smiled behind my vizard 
to see his change of front. Now Mr. Nokes was 
Nelly’s butler, invaluable, a confidential servant, seldom 


We take our Turns on the Rack 


315 


in evidence, but quite well known to me. His mistress 
and I had been on good terms from the first, and (take 
it as in my favour or the reverse) my friend’s servants 
were always at my beck and call. Nokes was bowing 
at my chair door in an instant. “See here,” I said 
swiftly and softly from behind my mask. “I am 
Madame Stuart from His Majesty. Is the Duke of 
Monmouth with Mrs. Gwyn?” 

“He is expected momently, Madame. My mistress 
bade them deny her for that reason; but permit me 
to inform her that you are without.” 

“Why, do,” I said, “and that I must have a word 
with her or his Grace, one or t’other,” and a minute 
later I was in Nelly’s cabinet. 

A beautiful room it was, of fair proportions, filled 
(over-filled) with pretty things, sweet with flowers, 
picturesquely untidy, with “Nelly” written all over 
it. I surveyed the scene with tolerant amusement. 
A lovely little red and white spaniel stretched up my 
gown to lick my hand, a cageful of rare foreign birds 
fluttered at the wires for sugar-plums. From the 
bedroom beyond voices sounded. I knew I should 
not have long to wait! The King’s mistress — the 
King’s friend! There was a bond of union between 
this gay butterfly and my quiet brown moth self, 
unbreakable, our changeless loyalty. Each of us 
appreciated that in the other; we were allies, we 
served alike (perhaps we suffered sometimes), and we 
loved alike. Mrs. Gwyn had no cause whatever to 
be jealous of me — that I might be jealous of her never 
entered her kind curly head, nor indeed any other 
head than my own, or shall I say my heart? But 
I was never jealous; put it down to my credit. No 
woman of the King’s ever caused me a heart-ache, 
for to my own private belief I clung — and cling 
still. He never loved any woman as he loved 
his son James, whom I adored and spoiled and 


316 My Two Kings 

slaved for and mothered, and for whom I had no heart 
left. . . . 

The bedroom door was ajar, obviously. There was 
the sound of something tearing, then that of an un- 
mistakable slap ! To this succeeded a round oath 
straight from Drury Lane — and the door flew wide 
open. 

“Go to the devil!” said Mrs. Ellen over her 
shoulder. “And tell him from me you’ll suit him 
exactly. Mend that smock before you go, though.” 
Then to me: 

“Madame, your servant ! You seem to me an 
angel after these children of Belial. Tell me, Mistress 
Stuart, do you ever box your wenches’ ears and swear 
and split your finest shift from neck to heels? Not 
you, you’re too pretty bred. But I’d give a good deal 
to see you quiet ladies lose your tempers. Perhaps 
you never do?” 

She curtsied — I laughed. “Why, I’ve just been 
losing mine outrageous, that I’ll confess to you. 
Nay, I didn’t swear nor slap nor split anything that 
I can remember and — no, I’m not going to tell you 
with whom I lost it, you want to know too much. 
But here I am, forcing my way in upon you, and you 
denied to everybody but somebody. Nelly, forgive 
me. It is that tiresome boy, plague take him! I 
shall speed him to the devil with my compliments 
next” — (“Faith, he can go with my maid, she’s a 
damned pretty piece,” interjected my hostess) — “and 
I had to see him, or you yourself. I dared trust no 
one. His Majesty bids him attend his pleasure at 
Will’s to-night without fail. At last! at last! Oh, 
I have had such an afternoon’s work and was most 
handsomely trounced by the King for my pains. Phew, 
I’m dead of it.” 

Nelly looked at me roguishly, her blue eyes slowly 
screwing up till they were almost invisible, her red 


We take our Turns on the Rack 317 

lips parting in a hearty and most infectious peal of 
laughter. 

“So you won’t tell me with whom you lost your 
temper? Well, no, Madame, I wouldn’t if I were 
you ! And his Grace is to go to the devil ? — won’t 
you leave him to his father instead, just for to-night? 
Meantime, if you’ll pardon my being all unready” 
(she glanced down at her exquisite lace undress and 
put her hands in mock dismay to her tumbled curls), 
“won’t you stay supper yourself and meet the rascal? 
’Tis just about to be served. Nokes, rat you! bid 
Madame’s chair put up” — this was cried into the 
corridor from the closet door — “and hasten those 
slugs; we’ll sup immediately. Wait for his Grace? 
May I die if I wait another minute! Dukes are cheap 
when one’s hungry. Madame, let me conduct you” — 
this with a complete change of tone. A small pink 
hand was inserted beneath mine, Nelly, with the 
prettiest gallant air, as if suddenly enacting one of 
her famous male parts, handed me from the cabinet 
to another door and through into the well-known 
mirror-lined dining saloon. “You have earned a glass 
of Rhenish, surely,” she said with a charming grace 
to me. “Pleading with a man, getting one’s way with 
a man, quarrelling with a man — ’tis hard work. Even 
so clever a lady as you can’t do everything in one 
sentence.” 

“Hardly,” I said drily. “ ’Twould be a long 
sentence, that, anyhow. I’m weary enough, and I know 
your Rhenish of old. I deserve a bottle.” 

“You shall have six,” replied Nelly. “Nokes, open 
six bottles for Madame Stuart.” 

“Lord!” I cried, “if James is to get to the King, 
if he is even to get the message sending him there, I 
had best begin on one. One, my good Nokes!” 

So went our gay supper. The servants left the 
room. The soft radiance of many wax candles, set 


318 


My Two Kings 


in splendid silves sconces, lit up the entire apartment; 
the table was heaped with fruit and crowded with 
magnificent plate, fine porcelain, the latest crystal ; 
flowers were massed everywhere. The windows were 
open to the outer air, and Nelly and I, seated in our 
luxurious chairs, were reflected a hundred times in 
the mirrors lining the walls, aye, even the ceiling 
Nelly and I, Nelly and I! — over and over again, look 
where you would. Her nut-brown curls, yellow in 
the candleshine, her pink and white complexion of a 
child, her rounded babyish figure, her dimpled hands, 
laughter incarnate and irresponsible youth, quick wit 
and madcap spirits, made an alluring whole. Woman 
though I was, Nelly held me always under her spell, 
no matter that she came from the purlieus of The 
Lane, could not name her father, and would have 
been better without the mother of whom she was never 
ashamed. 

She lounged there; the adorable lace wrapper, loose 
in the sleeves and open at the neck, was carelessly 
held together by a pearl-worked girdle, pearls were in 
her ears, pearls on her fingers. I sat more erect in 
my brown velvet and gold laces, my head dressed with 
more ordered, yet as profuse curls, if grey, my eyes 
still bright, my cheeks as pink, ceruse or no, as typically 
a figure of the Restoration Court, playing an incom- 
prehensible part in the middle of it all, engaged now 
in doing my little best to steer straight the very 
crooked course of that most arrant young blackguard 
of the time. With the help, too, of the Protestant 
Mistress, bracketed with the Protestant Duke! Irre- 
sistibly funny — I laughed aloud. 

Rut the night was speeding; if James did not soon 
come, I must find him somehow, or the priceless 
opportunity would be lost. We had supped early. 
I looked at the little beaten-gold watch that hung 
at my waist. Charles usually supped late, but even 


We take our Turns on the Rack 


319 


so I had only an hour in hand. I glanced towards 
my hostess and rose. 

“I must go,” I said. “He cannot be coming, and 
he must be found. I must chase him all over the town 
like the watch — not for the first time hath he been 
so chased! — unless you can tell me whence he was to 
come here?” 

She shook her golden head. “But hark,” she said, 
“he arrives, I think,” and hardly had the words 
left her mouth than there was a bustle in the hall 
outside; voices, footsteps, a couple of footmen threw 
open the great double doors, and in walked — King 
Charles ! 

Oaths are catching, they say; never was I nearer 
borrowing from Nelly’s choicest vocabulary than at 
the moment when I had to rise, and curtsey, and 
smile as my King came in, murmur an echo to Mrs. 
Gwyn’s laughing greeting — though she, I confess, 
threw herself back in her chair in uncontrollable 
merriment — play, in short, the part indicated, only 
too conscious that the tail of Charles’s malicious eye 
was observing my every expression. What was the 
use of acting before the King? — one never took him 
in, and he was always so dreadfully amused at one’s 
miscarried efforts. I was perfectly certain it was 
no surprise to him to catch me there, he must have 
guessed in an instant that I had come to waylay his 
son; that this son had never arrived, and that I was 
waylaid by himself only added zest to the joke. Not 
for the first time that evening did I wish Monmouth 
at the devil! 

His father bowed with immense gravity to my 
curtsey. “So we meet again, cousin? Nelly, I find 
you entertaining an angel very much aware. Angels 
know what they are about, it is to be hoped. You’ve 
already called her one? A change from your usual 
visitors. Now that I’ve come you’ll have to put up 


320 


My Two Kings 


with the reverse again. And you were expecting 
that cherub or seraph, my son? His wings haven’t 
carried him here yet. Madame Stuart, yours carry 
you away — why such haste?” as I endeavoured to 
back noiselessly out into the shadows and slip off 
without further ceremony. (At all costs I must 
carry word to the servants to admit Monmouth if he 
arrived, or if possible see him for a moment myself.) 
Charles glanced at me more snakelike than ever, and 
shook silently with mirth. “So you glide out to go 
over to the enemy — I know you,” he chuckled; “a 
whispered warning to Bruce kicking his heels in the 
hall, old Nokes held by the button: ‘Keep his Grace 
fast by the leg if he tries to run away !’ — pickets 
thrown out all down Pall Mall, and the rest 
of it.” 

I threw back my head and leaned laughing against 
the edge of the table. “Sire, you have me defeated 
again, you, like Mrs. Gwyn, know too much.” 

“I always did,” said Charles. 

He bent from where he sat at the head of the table, 
reached an arm across the corner and took hold of 
my flowing skirts. “A chair, Madame! Now sit 
you down, goose, and don’t trouble your pretty head 
further. A glass of Rhenish with you to drink con- 
fusion to James’s bosom friends (all but yourself!) 
as he drank it with me half an hour ago. I thought 
that would startle you — Rhenish is not good for 
velvet gowns, eh? Send the bill in to me; I owe you 
something, my dear. Nay, Nell, I’ve already supped. 
James and I honoured Will with our company this 
hour gone.” 

I sat and stared in front of me. The spilt wine 
glistened on the folds of the velvet and in my tall 
goblet like liquid topaz ; the King’s glass clinked against 
the rim of mine. 

“My lady,” said the deep voice, “drink and be 


We take our Turns on the Rack 


321 


merry. That boy has cost you — and me — enough for 
one day. I shall begin to think the ‘No’ you hurled 
at me this afternoon should have been ‘Yes’ in spite 
of everything.” 

I raised my eyes to his and my glass to his glass, 
and then touched the rim with lips that quivered in a 
smile. He stretched out his hand again and patted 
mine very kindly, and said, half to himself: “But if 
you must be a fool, Charlotte, I’m glad it’s for 
James” — the concluding speech of one of the most ex- 
traordinary conversations — in two parts — that I have 
ever had with any one. 


Nelly still lay back in her chair, silent for once, as 
she well knew how to be when necessary, serious till 
we laughed again, immovable till I got up to go. I 
took my leave; she went with me to the door. “All’s 
well!” she whispered, sparkling with mischief. “The 
Duke hath his own way. Tell his Grace I waited 
supper for him for three hours ! Give you good-night, 
Madame, and sweet dreams. You have won the last 
throw.” 

“Have I?” I said. The multiple mirrors cast back 
at me, as I stood just beyond the door with my hand 
in hers, a tall weary figure, sunk moodily in its seat, 
twisting with restless fingers the stem of an empty 
glass. “Heaven send I’ve done him no wrong,” I 
whispered. “We take our turns on the rack for James, 
I think. Go back, Nelly. Make him forget,” and I 
drew the door to behind me. 

Bruce, as the King had said, was kicking idle heels 
in the great gilded hall, his hands driven deep down 
into his pockets, his fine wig a trifle awry. He 
jumped boyishly to his feet as I came out of the 
dining-room, kissed the hand I extended to him and 
held it still in his big, warm, friendly clasp. He looked 


322 My Two Kings 

down at me from his towering height, his kind face 
all over smiles. 

“Wonderful woman,” he whispered to me, cocking 
an eye towards the lackeys opposite close to the front 
door. “ ’Twas the greatest success! His Majesty 
met the good Duke” (thus Bruce always spoke of 
Monmouth, whom he loved devotedly), “and they were 
friends again before Chiffinch could serve the supper. 
How did you win over the King? Once they met it 
was plain sailing ; but till they met — ! and the 
meeting is owing to you. Ah, his Grace knows, and 
he will wait on you on your return; he bade me tell 
you, did I see you before he could. But how, Madame, 
how wove you the spell?” 

I glanced up at his excited face with a weary smile. 
“Why, truly, I know not. By loss, I think — loss of 
temper, my friend! — or by purchase; I went a-selling, 
or a-giving, perhaps. . . .” He looked mystified and 
I laughed outright at his mystification. Had I been 
younger, where would the puzzle have lain? What 
had I to barter when I dealt with a king? 

“Nay, Bruce, my dear, we had no dealings, your 
master — our master — and I. Except that he gave 
me what I asked for. Now I’m for my bed. ’Tis a 
tiring world.” 

“Not when it goes as we wish, sure,” he retorted 
laughing, taking my cloak from the servants and 
wrapping it carefully about my autumn-tinted 
draperies. I snapped my mask into place. “When 
you’re my age, sir,” I said with a smile, “you’ll find 
you’re most weary when you’ve just been given all 
you ask. Have I to see James this night, egad, and 
so late? Will he never have mercy on me?” 

“What mercy do you require of him?” asked Bruce, 
putting aside Nelly’s men and settling me in my chair 
himself with his old courtier-like deftness. 

“That he should let me alone!” I cried, with a 


We take our Turns on the Rack 


323 


sudden rush of pettishness, falling back among my 
cushions. 

Lord Bruce kissed my hand once more and smiled 
down at me. “Ah, Madame, that would break your 
heart. But he will never break it thus, he loves you 
too well.” 

“James love me?” I cried. “Why, yes, he loves 
everybody, at one time or another. This is ‘another,’ 
Bruce ! But I’m plaguy ungrateful ; he doth love 
me a little or he would let me alone, I’ll allow that. 
And we love him, don’t we?” I looked at him hard 
through the black velvet of my vizard. “We love them , 
my friend?” 

“Always,” said Bruce. “Always” 

He bowed, backed, and my chair was carried away 
from the door. 

Always? That was true. He never changed. Read 
his Memoirs, and see for yourself. 

In these pages I too have set down, for my part, 
the single word Always against my love for James 
Scott — the love of a woman who was always in love 
with another man. 


t 


THE HATE OF THE DUCHESS OF MONMOUTH 








i 










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* 







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\ 




CHAPTER XIX 


THE HATE OF THE DUCHESS OF MONMOUTH 

Did you know it, I could be 
Only ready to implore you 
That you’d deign to pardon me 
All my pity for you! 

M. N. 

I could write much of the time which elapsed be- 
tween this incident and the exposure of the Rye- 
house Plot, but there is little, public or private, which 
I have the heart to set down. The Stuart Fate had 
Monmouth in its grip. Every now and then he 
seemed on the verge of breaking free, but in my heart 
of hearts I knew there was no freedom for him — I 
was aware there was no hope, and yet I hoped! I 
saw the future towards which he was being steadily 
swept, and yet I tried to shut my eyes to it; I could 
not believe in him, and yet I did my best to believe. 
I suffered; but Heaven be my witness that I did not 
suffer alone. 

How much Charles was hurt by Monmouth nobody 
knows; History, jeering again, calls his affection for 
his son senile, adduces his secret kindliness, while 
openly stern, as a proof of his incurable duplicity. I 
only guessed, but I guessed enough to know Charles 
was in torment. And yet he was aware, must have 
been aware, that he, like me, had to choose between 
Stuart and Scott, that James his brother or James 
his son was the rightful heir and must be treated as 
such — and he temporised, and played them off one 
327 


828 


My Two Kings 


against the other, and, with incredible skill, like a 
juggler on a tight rope tossing a couple of balls, never 
let either drop nor lost his own balance. But the 
strain of it ! I think it killed him. History again 
will tell you he died because of women. I think he 
died because of men. But I can never read his riddle. 
Why did he not throw all his weight on one side and 
have done with it? James of York, never popular, 
could have been sacrificed, banished abroad, pensioned 
off, if you will — his fate would hardly have been worse 
than it already was ! — and he would have been spared 
much of what came after. 

And Monmouth, proclaimed the heir, raised above 
that profligate wild Whig rabble that brought him to 
ruin, put, officially, into a high position of responsi- 
bility and trust, taught how to handle the reins of 
government, would have been another man. Oh ! I 
have dreamt of it — Monmouth coming into his own 
in the open light of day, loved by the people, needing, 
as I honestly think, but a few more years of weight 
and balance to make him a fine soldier, a decently 
capable leader, a sufficiently firm ruler; for he was 
honest, he hated cruelty, he was more truly religious 
than most Stuarts, he was generous and kind — 
qualities conspicuous by their absence among the 
great men of the day. The English people worshipped 
him, and with them he was at his best; his was the 
sort of nature that shows at its worst in the face of 
opposition, dislike, and ill-luck, and expands like a 
sun-warmed flower in the glow of popularity. One 
sighs over the memory of the Progresses in the adoring 
West Country, the triumphs of “The Duking Days.” 
He was in the prime of his glorious young manhood, 
his looks, his spirits, his fascination. He had inherited 
the fine health and clean blood of his grandfather 
Charles I, whose body when dissected after his 
martyrdom proved to be absolutely sound in every 


The Hate of the Duchess of Monmouth 329 

respect. I do not think his sins affected him at all, 
his excesses slid off his constitution like dew from a 
leaf. I never remember him ill, I never saw him look- 
ing dissipated, and boyish as he was when I first met 
him, a boy he lay as if in a boy’s sleep on his bier in 
the Bell Tower. 

Age, thank Heaven, never came near him — he was 
spared that. And with that, much else that I can 
thank Heaven he never came to know. 

But, because the King would not choose between 
them, or rather, chose first one and then the other, 
the country rocked dangerously with the swaying of 
the two great parties, and the condition of England 
was desperate indeed. Then, as a bolt from the blue 
to many of us, though not to me, came the bursting 
of the bubble of the Rye-house Plot, and Monmouth’s 
flight (with those who could escape) with a price set 
on his head. I did not need to be told where he had 
gone; I smiled when I heard of busy search made 
for him here, there, and everywhere. I said “Tod- 
dington” to myself, and wished I had been living in 
the Watling Street to help him on his way, but I 
knew he would be safe with Henrietta. (“And if he 
and she between them can’t keep the old lady quiet!” 
I added to myself grimly, “he’ll never manage to be 
King of England.”) 

There came to me a messenger from my home 
towards the end of June 1683; one of my servants, 
it seemed, had met and recognised the fugitive close 
to St. Stephen’s, indeed, Monmouth had so far trusted 
the man that he had bidden him go up to me at 
Whitehall and bring me a fragment of paper with just 
H.W. scrawled on it — he knew I should know. The 
fellow came, with some difficulty he penetrated the 
palace and was brought to my rooms; and I, after a 
few words of interrogation, made all sure, rewarded 
him handsomely, swore him to secrecy, and went to 


330 My Two Kings 

Chiffinch’s lodging to ask for an immediate audience 
of the King. 

The Cabinet by the Water was engaged, His Majesty 
was close shut in with the Duchess of Monmouth — 
well, I must wait. Chiffinch looked at me very nar- 
rowly, and I smiled a little. “I think I shall please 
the King,” I said. “I have news for him — but not 
for the Duchess. Let me wait here, Will, if I am not 
in the way.” 

So I sat by the window of the ante-room, the bit 
of paper folded closely in my hand. I had to wait 
long, voices came faintly through the door, some- 
times there were silences; then, to my distress, there 
was a sudden exit, the Duchess, lost to all her usual 
calm, cold self-control, shaken with sobs, came violently 
out and turned blindly to me, fancying, I imagine, 
that I was Chiffinch, as I stood, a dark figure between 
her and the light; but in a moment she saw, and, if 
possible, the slowly growing hate which she had felt 
for years for me rose all the higher that I should see 
her tears. She made a magnificent effort, pulled her- 
self together, and said in her accustomed chilly voice, 
“You, Madame Stuart? And while we are in trouble, 
what is your business here?” 

If she had not been so angry — the revulsion of 
feeling at the sight of me — she would have been 
wiser. 

“My business,” I said quietly, “is the King’s,” and 
I closed my fingers more firmly on the scrap of writ- 
ing. My heart, for all it was steeled against her, was 
yet softened by her obvious anxiety ; but if I had dared 
to say, “James is safe, I know where he is!” the vials 
of her wrath and suspicion had been loosed upon me, 
I should have betrayed him, she would have guessed 
in a moment where he was, having ( as I knew) a shrewd 
suspicion of the part I had plaj^ed in connection with 
Henrietta already. 


The Hate of the Duchess of Monmouth 331 

We faced each other. “Your Grace,” I said softly, 
“these are hard times, we are all worn with appre- 
hension, let us not make each other’s burden heavier. 
We, I think, all care alike, our hearts incline in the 
same direction; may we not at least meet as friends 
and not add to the miseries of life by bitter speeches? 
Can I not help you?” 

“You?” said the Duchess of Monmouth, with the 
edge of tempered steel in her voice, “you ask that of 
me? You help me? Heaven forgive you! Keep your 
help for those who ask for it.” 

Now she was very unhappy and I had been a fool. 
I ought to have remembered that I must seem in her 
eyes a bitter enemy, if only for my friendship for 
Lady Wentworth. (Yet Lady Wentworth made a 
decent respectable man of Monmouth, but could I 
expect his wife to be grateful?) She knew I hated 
his Whig associates ; she knew I always tried to keep 
the peace between him and the King; she knew, or 
might have known, that I was to be trusted with 
any and every secret concerning him; and, because of 
just this other woman, she turned on me, white-faced, 
red-eyed, her fine gown disordered, her beautiful hair 
in confusion, the expression of that coldest and cruellest 
of all hate, the hate of the North, on her disfigured 
face. Nothing ever shook me; if I had been afraid 
of any woman it would have been of Monmouth’s 
mistress, not his wife. I was sorry, deeply sorry, but 
— oh, it’s hopeless ! You help a man, and if you do 
it whole-heartedly, you make enemies of all the other 
women who care for him. At least I had found an 
ouspoken foe in one who, till now, had been outwardly 
friendly. 

“Thank you for your advice,” I said quickly. “I 
will keep my help for those who require it of me. I 
was pitying you, Madame, for your obvious trouble.” 

She turned on me; I had no idea that the self- 


382 


My Two Kings 


controlled, cynical woman, whom nothing seemed to 
disarm, could flare up like white fire as she did then. 

“Pity me?” she hissed. “How dare ye?” 

Yes, how dared I? I had not been sympathetic, 

I had been insulting. But it was not only I who was 
insulting at that interview. She moved towards the 
outer door, then turned, and looked me over. 

“I hope you’re well paid,” she said in a deadly 
quiet voice. “There’s a long list in his Grace’s debt, 
and most of my fortune’s gone to those ladies. So, 
Madame, I trust he does not forget what he owes you 
and that you get your money.” 

I went towards her where she stood at the door ; I 
looked her in the eyes, steel as the sword that rang 
in her voice; unhappy she might be, suspicious of 
me she might be, but she was no fool, and she knew 
I loved her husband as an elder sister might have 
done ; she knew how I worked for him ; she knew better 
• — indeed she knew better! — than to taunt me (for 
therein lay the sting) with being one of her husband’s 
women, when I, for all the world to see, was too old 
and not sufficiently attractive. 

She forgot for the moment, I think, that she was 
dealing with a Stuart. 

“Madame,” I said, “I am richly repaid. I have 
never had a penny of my lord Duke’s, nor shall I ever. 
He has given me his friendship, his confidence, and 
his gratitude. I’m sorry your Grace is so poor.” 

There was an appalling silence ; perhaps I had over- 
stepped all bounds, but I had been severely tried. She 
ignored my last sentence. 

“Do you know, Mistress,” she said, in a voice that 
made every word hurt like a dagger, “what is the name 
for women whose day is past who help young libertines 
to their ladies’ favours and gain thereby their ‘friend- 
ship, confidence, and gratitude’? ’Tis not a pretty 
profession.” 


The Hate of the Duchess of Monmouth 333 

Now I had it straight ! — this was her vengeance on 
me for befriending Henrietta Wentworth. We had 
dropped our masks indeed; I was so angry, and yet 
so immeasurably amused, that I simply burst out 
laughing. 

“Oh, your Grace,” I cried, “how strange you 
should say that to me! For give me leave to say 
that no woman has ever sent my lord Duke into 
the arms of others as effectually as you yourself,” and 
I swung on my heel, with a perfectly brutal little 
half-curtsey, half flip of my skirts, went to the door 
of the King’s cabinet, scratched thereon, as I had 
no real right to do, but it was part of my armour at 
that moment. Where Chiffinch was I cannot under- 
stand, nor could I then, why he left the Duchess and 
me alone then I am unable to explain; I wish he had 
not, but so it fell out. 

A voice said “Enter.” I turned the key and went 
straight in. The King sat in a great chair by the 
fireplace, shading his eyes with his hand. 

Once in his presence, with the door closed behind 
me, the flood of my anger rushed back on my heart, 
leaving me speechless, helpless, near to the breaking 
point; only the sight of that weary, depressed figure, 
crumpled up in the chair like an old man, the dark, 
tired face half hidden, made me forget myself and all 
other women in the world. I went forward very 
quietly, I knelt down by his elbow, I laid one timid 
hand on his arm and with the other I spread on his 
knee the little paper with the initials H. W. scribbled 
on it. 

“Charles,” I said softly, in a whisper, “our boy has 
sent us this.” 


Ten minutes later, when Chiffinch scratched at the 
door and was admitted, he found the King and his 


My Two Kings 


334 

kinswoman seated one on each side of the cold hearth, 
two practical people who had been settling a small 
affair of business. He did not know that I had cried 
for five minutes, my head on Charles’s hand out- 
stretched on the arm of his chair, nor that my hair 
was bright with more than a few tears from those 
kind brown eyes that had looked down on me. Oh, 
we loved James — always, always! Had there been no 
other link between us, that alone would have riveted 
us fast! He was so dear to me, and his father, whom 
he forgot, whom he used so badly, against whose free- 
dom (though never against whose life, as they swore) 
he plotted, loved him quite unalterably; nothing, in 
all Charles’s life, ever caused his inner love for Mon- 
mouth to waver for an instant. 

He was angry with him, and with reason ; he 
publicly disgraced him; he kept up a semblance of 
stony wrath; he took part with others against him; 
he died, so the world thinks, without a word of for- 
giveness. He never changed at all. It was absolute 
devotion from start to finish. Monmouth did not 
realise it — I did. 

And because I loved him too, yet because the King 
came first, it nearly broke my heart to see how Charles 
suffered. And I could do so little, for the King, fond 
of me, kind to me as he was, had no love to spare for 
such as I! Well, I could bring him news such as 
I did that day; I could bear his daughter-in-law’s 
insolence and forget it in a moment; I could (and 
did) bear much more before I had done, and I saw 
Monmouth come to realise Henrietta’s love, but never 
that of his father. Charles was both father and 
mother to Monmouth ; he combined a woman’s 
unswerving fidelity with an unreasoning and unrea- 
sonable indulgence that was kind only to be cruel, 
in result. But I think Charles asked but one thing 
of anybody: he asked of his son just the love he him- 


The Hate of the Duchess of Monmouth 335 

self gave him — and he never had it. And he faced, 
in those last years of his, the fact that Monmouth 
loved him as in the old game, “Much, little, not at 
all.” He faced the fact that Monmouth loved him 
because he was King, that Monmouth wanted not love 
of him, but the promise of a crown. And to this day 
I shall never understand how anybody failed to love 
Charles. 

Yet, perhaps, after all I do understand. It was 
because they did not understand him. 

“Sire,” I said, “shall I go down to Toddington 
myself? If you will give me leave to retire to my 
home, then, after a little, I will make my way on- 
ward — I can do it unnoticed — and I can see him quite 
secretly, and tell him anything you will and bring 
back all news.” 

Charles shook his head. “Nay,” he replied, “we 
know where he is — he’ll be safe. While he is there, 
he’ll be out of mischief, and, mark my words, he will 
find it very pleasant to be at peace. Madame Virgin, 
at peace !” said the tired voice, suddenly intense, 
suddenly strained with misery. “My dear — think of 
it. Young and handsome and in love for the first 
time, far away in the depths of the country with the 
woman he worships. Why, James is in Paradise — 
and I am in Purgatory.” He looked at me. 
“You don’t believe in Purgatory, eh? It’s to be 
all Heaven for you or all Hell — hereafter. But 
meantime, my cousin, what do you make of this life? 
Neither Purgatory nor Paradise, neither Heaven nor 
Hell.” 

I looked at him with an aching heart. “Sire,” I 
answered, “I think of it as — this life; that is what it 
is to me. And that’s enough, too much, sometimes, 
jf — x could find myself a Paradise like James, truly, it 
would be good. But oh, Charles, if I could find one 
for you . . . 1” 


336 


My Two Kings 


He rose, and the old cynical expression came back 
to his face. “I’m happy enough,” he said. “You 
need not distress yourself about me.” He looked at 
his watch and round the room at the various other 
timepieces, all going, all quite independent of one 
another, and he seemed to be making a sort of half- 
smiling calculation. 

“Well, I have an appointment with my lady Ports- 
mouth. I go” — he looked at me — “to my Paradise,” 
and he walked with me to the door. I cannot de- 
scribe it; for that one moment there swam over me 
a black sea of despair that was not jealousy, for had 
he found real happiness with Louise Portsmouth I 
could have sped him on his way to her with a light 
and grateful heart. He saw my face as I opened the 
door for him. He took hold of the ruffle of my sleeve 
and held me back. 

“Remember,” he said softly, “we can’t do every- 
thing for everybody! We, you and I, have done a 
good deal for James; we have helped him, largely 
helped him, to his Paradise, I think. And I’ve tried 
to find one for you, Charlotte, but somehow” — he 
shrugged his shoulders — “you’re one of those con- 
founded women who are nuns by nature!” 

I twisted round and looked hard up at him. “So 
you don’t know me at all after all these years,” I cried. 
“I am no nun, I never was, I have told you so often. 
But there’s nothing, nobody in life that I find can 
make a Paradise for me, Sire.” (Charles looked at me, 
as hard, as straight as I at him.) “There’s only 
one man, and he has never thought of me in that way, 
thank Heaven!” I said. 

We still stood, gazing at each other without flinch- 
ing. “For I could never have made a Paradise for 
him, and, Sire, that is why there isn’t one for me, for 
it takes two to make it — like a quarrel.” 

“He’s a fool,” said my King, and laughed, a little 


The Hate of the Duchess of Monmouth 337 

dry laugh that had no mirth in it, and nodded as he 
went out. “But I wonder,” he added slowly, as he 
passed into the corridor — “I wonder if I had not had 
a jewel in my hand all these years — and have just 
played marbles with it.” 



EDEN 



CHAPTER XX 


EDEN 


With joy we do leave thee, 

False world, and do forgive 
All thy base treachery. 

For now we’ll happy live! 

We’ll to our bow’rs, 

And there spend our hours; 

Happy there we will be, 

We no strife there can see. 

No quarrelling for crowns, 

Nor fear the great ones’ frowns, 

No slavery of State, 

No changes in our fate. 

From plots this place is free, 

Here we’ll happy be! 

We’ll sit and bless our stars, 

That from the noise of wars, 

Did us Toddington give, 

That thus we happy live. 

The Duke of Monmouth.* 

I 

For all he would not let me go to Toddington when 
Monmouth first fled there, a couple of months later 
Charles seemed to be anxious to have more news 
of his son, albeit he never said so. But I watched 
him, and I saw. Had I asked permission again, 
he, man-like, would probably have dismissed me once 
more with a hasty, “Pish, stay where you are ! Are 
you sick of Whitehall, then?” So, woman-like, it 
behoved me to gang warily. Then I found he too 
was watching me. When a man means a woman to 
speak first, and is quite sure she is bound to do so, 

* Written at Toddington Place, summer of 1683. From his 
pocket-book in the British Museum. 

841 


342 


My Two Kings 


given rope enough, nothing is more amazing than her 
persistent silence. I did not mean to anger the King, 
but I was determined he should propose to me what 
I would not again suggest. So there was a little silent 
struggle between us! 

Then came a day when the Court had a new jest; 
it was reported Monmouth had wearied of Todding- 
ton and had left it, carrying off Henrietta. Old Lady 
Wentworth was vowing vengeance and stirring up 
all the countryside, so said Rumour. Irritating 
whispers, irritating laughs sounded in corners. Charles, 
whose temper had worn thin for once, sat in the middle 
of it all, watched without seeming to watch, listened 
without appearing to listen, and said nothing in 
public. But that night I met him in the ante-room 
of the Queen’s chamber. I had been superintending 
the arrangement of some of my lace-work upon a 
gown which the sewing-maids were refurbishing ; I 
had been in attendance in her bedroom and was now 
dismissed. The King, looking rather like a large 
black thunder-cloud, nearly collided with me at the 
door. 

Seeing who it was he closed both the entrances 
into her room and that leading out of the ante- 
chamber — had it not been done by the King I should 
have said the shutting of those doors came perilously 
near to slamming! — and suddenly turned on me with 
what I will frankly confess was a perfectly shattering 
oath! 

“ all women!” said Charles. “I should like to 

throw them into the Thames.” 

“Yes, Sire,” I replied meekly, casting down my 
eyes in feigned alarm. “All of us? Do not begin 
with me.” 

Charles laughed, a ray of sunlight streaming 
through the blackness of the thunder-cloud. “Oh, 
you!” he said, in a tone which his hearer could and 


Eden 


343 


did construe as she pleased. “I meant those giddy 
fools to-night. Pit-wish, pit-wish,” he imitated the 
noise of whispering. “Of course it’s James, and of 
course they’re off on the wrong tack. Left his 
sanctuary, hath he? Likely!” 

I waited in silence. 

“Well?” said Charles with a suddenness that would 
have made me jump once. “Well? You hold your 
tongue and look down your nose till I could slap your 
face. Why can’t you speak?” 

“But I can, Sire!” I replied with a little ripple of 
amusement, “only I was wondering which would annoy 
you most, speech or silence. And if you slap me, 
Charles, I shall neither talk nor hold my peace, I shall 
burst into tears!” 

“ ‘Oh ye seas and floods,’ ” said His Majesty ir- 
reverently, with a little petulant laugh that reminded 
me of his son, giving a vicious pull to the long curl 
that hung over the shoulder next to him. “What’s 
your opinion, now? Out with it. Is he there still, 
or is he off on some hare-brained chase that will land 
his neck in the noose? He forgets there is a price 
on his head and a warrant out for his arrest! He 
believes I can save him whatever he doth. I cannot, 
and if I could I would not. If he goes gallopading 
all over England he may hang, and I be rid of the 
worst of all my troubles. You laugh? It’s no laugh- 
ing matter. I am serious, woman!” 

“I know,” I retorted, trying to keep a straight 
face. “That is what makes it so amusing. You are 
never going to be disturbed by the idle cackling of 
that flock of geese yonder? If they say James is 
not there, why, you may be sure he is. But how can 
we find out for certain?” and I pretended to think, 
and suddenly caught a wicked black eye fixed on my 
mimic frown. 

“Be damned to you !” remarked my cousin, 


My Two Kings 


344 

shaking all over. “You’re set on forcing me to ask 
you to go and see. Well, I’ve cursed you till all’s 
blue, and you ought to be swooning on the floor. 
But you’re no fine lady, thank the gods. Have your 
way ; I do ask you. Go to your St. Albans for a week, 
ride over to Toddington, see James and that pretty 
girl of his (aye, she’s pretty, though the world would 
tell you she’s not to my taste), and bring me back 
news of him. How he is, my dear, how he looks, 

how ” The softened voice suddenly hardened 

again, the sentence closed with another expletive, 
“ him, the young viper !’ ’ 

I curtsied. “Sire, having said enough to reduce 
us all to ashes, your orders shall be obeyed. I will 
go; James shall send you a full report of himself and 
his doings. He’ll be glad to see me, the bearer of such 
messages !” 

The black eyes shone like polished jet. 

“Aye, pussy, tell him verbatim what I have said, 
don’t leave out a single world! James will recognise 
then the authentic ring of my remarks. I’ll have you 
conveyed down to Hertfordshire in a private coach. 
Lie you quietly at home for some days and then go 
over to Toddington unnoticed if you can. I do not 
want to have these babblers giving tongue over your 
absence. I’ll let them know you’re — h’m — elsewhere.” 

“Anywhere, Charles,” I said demurely, “so long as 
you can think of somewhere respectable.” 

I kissed his hand. “That,” said Charles, “is quite 
beyond me.” 


Toddington Place in August! In this life I have 
walked its barren woods in iron-grey December, when 
the dry reeds flared red along the white water, and 
Monmouth’s oak tossed skeleton branches to an empty 
sky. In that incarnation I sat one hot afternoon on 


Eden 


345 


the edge of the great pond, whence there came the 
drowsy scent of a thousand water-lilies, and the sun- 
light filtered through the thick foliage overhead and 
danced in gold on the hair of three happy people 
under a tree. 

My riding-hat lay on the skirts of my sober dark 
green habit, my vizard, whip, and gauntlets lay be- 
side it; Lady Wentworth, a perfectly charming figure 
in a fine white holland gown and a wide-leafed straw 
hat, her fair hair, released from the stiff Court dress- 
ing, streaming down her back to the grass on which 
she sat, was next to me; and Monmouth, like a young 
god in disguise, in a peasant’s suit of brown stuff, a 
coarse shirt and grey woollen hose, lace-less, jewel- 
less, his own hair curling about his sunburnt neck, 
lay on the short turf at our feet. We smiled down 
at him. 

“Once again the Principal Shepherd, eh, Jupiter?” 
I laughed to Henrietta, our thoughts flying back to 
the Masque of Calisto. “Jamesy, you look positively 
bucolic. You will soon be getting fat! At least the 
country agrees with you.” 

“Why does anybody ever live in the town?” asked 
Jamesy lazily, biting a long stem of grass between 
his white teeth, and looking from one to the other. 
“I vow the country is Heaven. I never was there 
before,” he added reflectively. Henrietta and I glanced 
at each other and laughed aloud. Monmouth was no 
whit put out. 

“Look,” he said, waving an appreciative arm round 
the vista of emerald trees and sapphire waters. “Look, 
saw you ever the like? And you live by choice looking 
out of brown windows on your grey old Thames !” 
(My hat was swept a yard away from my lap by this 
imperious gesture.) 

“James hath discovered the country, I see,” I 
remarked to Henrietta. “Oh, he makes the most 


346 


My Two Kings 


famous discoveries. No one had ever noticed it else! 
Now, not long ago he came and told me he had found 
out Love — Love ! and none of us had ever heard of 
such a thing.” 

Monmouth smiled with us. “These Court wits,” 
he said to Henrietta. “Bah! What do they know? 
They come down to Paradise — or should it be up ? — 
holding their long skirts in one hand and a quizzing- 
glass in the other. ‘Stab me, a buttercup !’ ” he said 
in a mincing voice, and we all went off into childish 
giggles. 

“Ah, you may laugh,” he said, “but I have the 
laugh of you all. There’s no place like this. I have 
said it.” 

“He hath not only said it, he hath set it in verse,” 
said Lady Wentworth, looking down at him with the 
soft light in her long dark eyes. “Read Madame your 
poems.” 

“James a poet?” I cried. “Why, that’s news in- 
deed. Will you bring out a volume to eclipse my poor 
Lord Rochester’s?” 

“Rochester?” said Monmouth, wrinkling up his 
straight nose in disgust. “That garbage! Not but 
what he could write a sweet enough love-song if only 
he could have remembered not to dip his pen in filth.” 
(I suppressed a smile; this virtuous attitude towards 
John Wilmot’s verse was startlingly new.) Out of 
a brown pocket came a brown pocket-book — the new 
singer needed no pressing. He cleared his throat com- 
mandingly, and began: 

“Oh how blest and how innocent 
And happy is a country life! 

Free from all turmoil and discontent, 

Here is no flattery or strife; 

For ’twas the first and happiest life 
When first man did enjoy himself.” 

Unfortunately he looked up and caught my eye. 


Eden 


347 


I am tender towards the youthful aspirant to poetical 
honours as a general rule; on this occasion no power 
on earth could keep me solemn. Monmouth’s face 
as I broke down in the effort was the last straw. 
“Oh, James!” I cried, wiping my eyes, “ what is 
that?” 

“That,” he replied, not in the least annoyed, “is 
the first verse of my first poem. I dare swear Master 
Dryden himself made no better beginning. What’s 
wrong, Madame?” 

“I don’t know,” I said weakly, as he and Henrietta 
both laughed. “Unless you meant ‘himself’ to rhyme 
with ‘innocent’ and ‘discontent.’ Did you?” 

“Not I!” answered Monmouth, in a lordly manner. 
“That line hath no rhyme. It waves a leg, see you, 
as if it were dancing a contre-danse. ’Tis the spirit 
of the thing you should admire, cousin, the fine rustic 
tone counts for most, the Garden of Eden air.” 

“Bravo !” I applauded. “You wax lyrical in prose 
at any rate. The Garden of Eden — yes. Very fine. 
Where is the serpent?” and I looked about me. 

“Here !” said the young Duke mischievously, patting 
my hand. 

I laughed afresh. “Thank you, my dear lord. It 
is true you’ve discovered Love and the Country and 
Poesy and the Garden of Eden — how much is there 
left for you to find out?” 

“Nothing more that counts, my dear,” he said, with 
one of his charming smiles at Henrietta. “I know 
everything now.” 

I think of that smile and that speech sometimes, and 
wrench my thoughts away from that awful period of 
further discovery that he had to pass through, when 
he met for the first time the fear of Life and the fear 
of Death — yes, and “the fear of Love” — and all that 
they could teach, and then Death itself, and learnt 
the great last lesson of all. Then, I remember, I 


348 


My Two Kings 


shivered as he spoke, and Lady Wentworth glanced 
swiftly at mv face out of the long eyes that had watched 
for so many years and saw so much always. I pulled 
myself together, and smiled afresh. 

“Why, there’s always something to learn, even at 
Court,” I said maliciously. “Had I known the joys 
of rural existence were a sealed book to you, we could 
have given you instruction at St. Stephen’s. You 
might have leant over my pig-sty walls with a straw 
in your mouth, poking fat pigs with your stick. But 
doubtless I should have failed to convince you that a 
pig-sty was preferable to Whitehall.” 

“Now that,” said Monmouth, “is meant to be witty, 
and is merely rude. Take back this message to my 
father: ‘Madame Stuart leaves your sty and comes 
to poke me in mine with a stick. She agrees that it 
is Paradise.’ ” 

I pulled his hair. “ ’Tis a happiness to be able to 
pull hair that hurts,” I interpolated. “All those fine 
curls you used to wear gave one no better sport than 
coming out if one were rough. I’ll tell His Majesty: 
aye, I’ve much to tell him. But what I cannot repeat 
is what he bade me tell you!” 

“As bad as that?” asked Henrietta seriously, to 
Monmouth’s delight. 

“Worse,” I said. “Much!” 

The golden sunshine slanted lower, a kingfisher, a 
streak of living turquoise light, flashed across the 
water. I sighed, rose, and shook the grass from my 
habit, replaced my hat on my grey locks, and said, 
“I must linger no more. I have far to go, and your 
upland roads are none too smooth. Besides, my poor 
nag will be weary of waiting tied to that tree.” 

We walked together towards the farther gate of 
the park — I had avoided the main entrance and had 
gone beyond it to the upper wicket leading into the 
woods above the fishponds. 


Eden 


349 


“Ah, my dears, I would I could stay, but you are 
better here in your Eden without the serpent.” I 
laid a hand on hers and his. “My dears,” I said again, 
and Monmouth freed my horse and put me up. “So 
I leave you, and go back to my sty.” 

I rode down the long Watling Street home. “Eden?” 
I said to myself, with a little ache at my heart, “a 
green garden with one other — the one other only out 
of all the world.” I thought of my own life, shook 
my head, and set my face with a smile towards home 
and London lying beyond it. Before my inward vision 
rose the great Banqueting Hall, the gold and colour, 
the light and sweet sound. I saw the shimmer of the 
polished floor and heard the wail of the violins, as 
a tall figure, moving out from among the crowd into 
the dance, swam into my ken, the dark face lit with 
the amazingly transfiguring smile, the white teeth and 
black eyes shining. 

Whitehall, my sty, to which I was going back! 



MY LAST INTERVIEW WITH KING CHARLES 




CHAPTER XXI 


MY LAST INTERVIEW WITH KING CHARLES 

You gave me my life, all my life for those years. Oh, yes, you did ! 

M. N. 

With that visit to Toddington ended our light-hearted 
gaiety at Court, and the old life of alternate sun and 
shadow seemed plunged for good and all into darkness 
which might be felt. 

I do not quite know how I got through the period 
in the autumn of 1683, when Monmouth, after the 
dreadful business of being restored to favour and 
losing in a day or two all the ground he had gained, 
left the palace, and, shortly after, England, for the 
last time during Charles’s lifetime — except for the 
secret visit in November 1684. “Fini de rire!” — and 
we laughed no more. 

For a while Charles confided in no one, and those 
of us left who loved Monmouth, Bruce among them, 
knew not how to bear it. Bruce came to see me one 
afternoon and found me looking out at a dreary 
expanse of grey river-water. We tried to talk on 
usual subjects, but it was useless. He suddenly 
choked and broke down, laying his head on the table 
on his folded arms, and crying quite openly. I could 
not cry. I just sat still and looked out of the window. 
At last I said, “My friend, this is tearing us in pieces. 
You and I, who are the King’s friends and James’s 
friends, know how the King loves him still, but how all 
his future depends on His Majesty. He is safe, in 
353 


354 


My Two Kings 


Holland, with — with ” I broke off. I had for- 

gotten, for the moment only, how deeply Bruce had 
loved Henrietta Wentworth. Because he had never 
changed towards Monmouth I had forgotten it — for 
the moment only. I could think of nothing but 
Charles, and Monmouth’s future, and wonder what 
life held for us all. It was as well I did not know. 
When Charles died, Bruce has set down in his Memoirs 
that then died all happiness at Court for him; and 
if for him, what not for me? But I was to do one 
more service yet. 

A few weeks went by. One day I had a long talk 
with Will Chiffinch, that strange creature, always, 
for all his faults, linked to me by his faithful devotion 
to his King; and he let fall a hint or two that Charles 
and Monmouth were in correspondence, that all was 
not as bad as it seemed, that he believed His Majesty 
kept up an appearance of anger against his Grace, 
but — “but watch his face, Madame,” he concluded to 
me. “Have you thought of late that His Majesty 
seems so sad? 111? We all know he is in bad health; 
he is more unwell than they” — he swept a hand round 
with a sort of gesture that included the unthinking 
Court crowd — “than they notice. But I believe he 
is more cheerful. You will be at the ball to-night, 
Madame? Why, then, put on your prettiest gown 
and be gay! You will find a change; I think you will 
remark it.” And I thanked him and went back to my 
rooms, lighter at heart. 

I did as he suggested; I put on my prettiest dress, 
a dull greyish-pink satin like a faded red rose, with 
a lace petticoat, embroidered and fringed with silver, 
silver-embroidered gloves, claret-hued stockings, and a 
big claret and silver fan, and went to dance my last 
dance, had I known it, at Whitehall. We had one 
of Monmouth’s favourite bransles, and I felt more 
like crying than laughing, but of course I wore a 


My Last Interview with King Charles 355 

smiling face, and talked nonsense, and made jests. I 
remembered my partner was a Dutch gentleman, 
whose name I hardly grasped, or forgot, a friend of 
Harry Sidney’s, and who had been not long before 
in Holland, though I did not find this out at first, 
or I might (in the excitement of the moment) have 
plied him with indiscreet questions about Monmouth. 
But as we were promenading round the hall after the 
dance, the King himself passed us with several gentle- 
men — Henry Savile among them, and I think, Sydney 
Godolphin — and paused on seeing us. He made a 
sign to my partner that he wished to speak to him, 
and I curtsied and drew back, of course; but after a 
word or two to him His Majesty made a little signal, 
barely more than the lift of an eyebrow, to me, and 
I came forward again. The crowd was all round us, 
but Charles smiled at me, and remarked, “Your pardon, 
cousin, I will restore you your partner now, but I may 
need your company to-morrow, Chiffinch shall inform 
you. In the meantime” — he dropped his usually 
resonant deep voice — “be happy.” 

“Do I look sad, Sire?” I asked, a trifle piqued, 
as I had been acting my hardest all the evening, and 
thought I had succeeded well. 

“I said, ‘be happy,’ ” answered Charles, “as well as 
look it ! To-morrow you shall say good-bye to all 
us dull fellows,” and he smiled again and moved away, 
while my heart gave a great leap and then stood still. 

“Good-bye”? Was I, too ? What should I hear 

on the morrow? 

“Ah, Madame,” put in my partner, “when you 
leave Whitehall you must travel. There are countries 
— and people — who would welcome you.” I recollect 
the immense effort I made to pull myself together, 
for I knew something lay behind all this. I made the 
obvious retort, but I was on my guard. I laughed, 
I danced all night. I was near the great door when 


356 


My Two Kings 


the King withdrew, our eyes met with understand- 
ing; he bowed right and left, and I, recovering from 
my deepest obeisance, sinking and rising amid the 
billows of my old rose satin and silver, looked round 
the great saloon, and said, in my heart: “Good-bye? 
Is it good-bye?” 


Next morning there was a scratch at the door of my 
ante-room while I was still in my undress, my woman 
came back to me saying Chiffinch was without, and 
would I present myself at the Cabinet by the Water 
in an hour’s time? I dressed quickly, put on a quiet 
gown and a big disguising scarf of striped gauze and 
silk, half hiding my face, and hurried to those familiar 
apartments, not so very far from my own, overlooking 
the river, where the King had his most private inter- 
views, and transacted more business than the present 
world is aware of! Chiffinch admitted me, his sharp 
features white and thin between the curls of his big 
black perriwig, his bright eyes fixed on me, though 
he said nothing. I looked a question at him, but he 
made no reply — he simply turned and conducted me 
to the Cabinet by the Water, announced me, and went, 
and I was alone with the King. 

He was standing by the fire with his elbow on the 
mantelpiece — the spring day was chilly, but the 
Thames sparkled with primrose sushine, rolling white 
clouds hurried across a clear blue sky. Charles was 
in a simple suit of iron-grey cloth faced with black 
silk, his Garter star alone giving brightness, his Garter 
ribbon, colour. 

“I have sent for you because I want to send you 
away,” he said to me, coming forward and taking my 
hand. I forgot all ceremony, all my manners ! I only 
stood still and looked at him, and felt my very lips 
growing white. 


My Last Interview with King Charles 357 

“Send me away — from you?” 

“Why, yes.” He laughed at my frightened face. 
“Banishment in disgrace! Nay, you need not be 
afraid! What would you say to travelling a little, 
to seeing another country, at my bidding? Would 
you do it? Will you go to Holland, to James, will 
you look after him, pranking at that Puritan Court, 
as you have always done, and care for my interests, 
as you have always done too? I can think of no one 
better; I want somebody who will live quietly there 
for a while, a friend of his, a friend of mine, for we 
are friends again, he and I — ah, you guessed? — I could 
not tell you before,” he added, almost apologetically, 
a rare thing for him. 

“Why should you tell me?” I said. “I was 
breaking my heart over you both, but I hoped for 
the best with James, and I — I always trusted you, 
Sire.” 

“Trusted me?” he echoed. “Now who has ever done 
that before? What a silly thing to do!” 

“Was it so silly, Sire? Have you ever failed me?” 

“Come to think of it,” said Charles, “have I? I 
believe not. But you’re the only woman in Whitehall 
who would say so !” 

“Ah, Sire,” I said, “but they don’t know you as I 
do.” 

“No, they don’t,” he answered, “and that’s a fact; 
not the man you know.” 

“Nor the King I know,” I added firmly. 

He gave me the swift glance under his lashes that 
so reminded me of Monmouth. “Perhaps not. 
You’re a good woman, and you’ve never asked me 
for anything, and why should I have deceived you? 
Besides, I always liked you!” he concluded, half to 
himself, in that funny way he had, and I burst out 
laughing. 

“Oh, how dull that sounds,” I cried, keeping 


358 My Two Kings 

my mirth natural only by an immense effort. “How 
dull!” 

But he heard the tension in my voice, he understood 
the strain I was going through, and, to help me, he 
went on with our jesting, though his next remark had 
the opposite result from what he intended. 

“Ah!” he remarked, with a little mischievous smile 
and a wholly French gesture of the fine hand. “Re- 
member, I am sending you to the man you love; the 
man you have loved all along, as I know.” 

At that brief sentence the mask I had worn for a 
decade was swept suddenly from my face, and speech 
came against my will. My eyes were raised to his 
very slowly, and as slowly let fall. 

“You do not know,” I whispered. . . . 

In the silence that ensued I never felt my heart beat 
at all. The King’s face completely changed. 

“Charlotte,” said the man I had loved all along, 
“I think I do. Look at me.” 

I obeyed; he met my eyes with a totally new ex- 
pression in his own, quite unmistakable. Charles, my 
beloved, my master, that one look has made worth 
while all the endless years, since that April morning, 
that I have had to live without you! 

“You see I know,” he said very quietly. “I have 
always known.” 

There was nothing more for either of us to say. 


He walked to the great window and looked out on 
the broad flood that swept irresistibly past the Palace 
of Whitehall and all it stood for. I remained standing 
rigid in the middle of the room and watched him as 
he went from me, and as he stood there, and as he 
turned once more towards me, a sable silhouette against 
the silver-gold of the outer light. But it was not he 
who broke the silence — it was I. 


My Last Interview with King Charles 359 

“So I go, Sire?” I said, and picked up the broken 
thread of our discourse, knotted it deftly as a woman 
can, and the subject went forward as if it had never 
been dropped. “To Holland, then; to James, and — 
when ?” 

“Can you be ready by to-night?” he asked 
simply. 

I caught my breath. I thought I was prepared for 
everything, but not for seeing him no more before I 
left him. . . . 

“To-night? You send me so soon?” 

“I send you now, if you will go. It is not a com- 
mand, it is a favour I ask of you,” Svith the smile 
that had won him his chequered way through the 
world.’ 

“Ah, I know it,” I murmured shakily; then, snatch- 
ing at my usual gay demeanour, “I’ll go in an 
hour !” 

“The packet doth not sail till to-morrow morning; 
but go, if you will, this minute !” and we both laughed, 
and as suddenly we became silent. “Listen,” he said 
in a business-like tone, “this is what I want of you. 
Sit here, and I will tell you,” and I seated myself in 
a high-backed chair by the table, while he took another. 
“These are your instructions,” and for ten minutes 
or so he spoke of what part I was to play, the exile 
following Monmouth into Holland, leading the simplest, 
most unostentatious life, yet not entirely secret, seeing 
the world out there, yet not of it, playing, in fact, 
much the same part I had played at Whitehall, but 
now taking a real hand in the political game, sending 
back information — he gave me the key to the cypher, 
and told me half a dozen other devices I was to employ, 
while awating his orders — a “go-between,” plying 
’twixt him and his beloved prodigal at the Court of 
his nephew and niece. 

“My nephew — my good nephew,” said Charles, with 


360 My Two Kings 

a little grimace; “if he lives, he will upset Europe — 
after I am dead.” 

“Don’t speak of your death!” I said quickly, with 
a sharp intake of my breath. 

“Let Caesar live long, let Caesar live long, 

For ever be happy and ever be young.” 

“Yes, my dear,” said Charles, leaning across the 
corner of the table and once more looking me very 
straight between the eyes, “I know all that. But 
Caesar is not young any longer, and has he ever been 
happy, do you think?” 

“No, Sire,” I replied quietly. “I do not think he 
ever has. Are Stuarts ever happy? Not the Stuarts 
that I know. But if I can make you any happier, 
why, I’ll go to James.” 

“He's happy now,” said Charles, “and he doth not 
know it,” and there fell another sudden silence between 
us. I rose and took up the papers he had given me, 
put them into the front of my gown, and said in an 
expressionless voice: 

“To-night I will be ready, then. I have not much 
to do, only a few small affairs to put in order. And 
I will say good-bye to no one.” 

“Not even to me,” he said lightly, rising too. “No, 
not good-bye.” 

“Nay,” I persisted, “for you must let me come back 
before long.” 

“You shall come back,” was the answer; “it is 
only good-bye till we meet again. Don’t shiver! — 
you are going to see that bad boy of mine, whose 
silly head hath been turned. Turn it round again the 
right way, will you? I do not want him to lose it 
altogether,” and he smiled and took both my hands, 
and at that moment my heart sank — sank like a 
stone — and I felt cold, the horrible chill of approach- 
ing calamity. A voice said in my ears like an echo, 


My Last Interview with King Charles 361 

“I do not want him to lose it altogether.” . . . “It is 
only good-bye till we meet again” . . . and the glimmer 
of spring sunshine on the water swayed suddenly, and 
went round with me. I could not say a word, I 
could only smile speechlessly ; the King, smiling, 
kissed my hands, both together. I curtsied, wonder- 
ing, as I swept down in the deep swooning movement, 
if I should ever have strength to rise again, rose, 
and turned blindly to the door, groping for a latch 
I could not see. Charles was beside me, his hand 
found it. 

“My dear, dear cousin!” he said. 

He put his arms round me and kissed me full on the 
lips for the first and last time; the door closed behind 
me, and I was in the ante-room looking at Chiffinch 
as if he were a stranger. 

“Not to lose his head altogether. ... It is only 
good-bye till we meet again. . . . My dear, dear 
cousin. . . .” 

And that was the last time on earth I saw King 
Charles. 


“Take care of him, Will Chiffinch,” I said, I hardly 
knew why, standing in my own little room to which 
the Keeper of the King’s Closet had escorted me. 

“Aye, Madame,” he returned — he seemed to under- 
stand, somehow, “I will do all I can. I would give 
my life for him, you know that. But his world has 
gone awry.” 

Ah, I knew it had. I could but do his bidding. 
He had set me a task, I would carry it out, and may- 
be all would go well, and Monmouth be restored to 
favour, and Whitehall be gay again, and I back in 
my little rooms — the little rooms I had not yet left! 
I looked round them, as if they were as strange to me 
as Chiffinch had been. 


362 


My Two Kings 


“I am to conduct you to the packet and see you 
safely on board. I have all ready, Madame; you have 
but to consider your travelling gear. Everything is 
planned, your journey is arranged, and a couple of 
gentlemen to attend you. You need think of nothing; 
you will want for nothing.” 

I still felt dazed. “Was it all settled upon before 
the King asked me to go?” I said stupidly. 

“Yes, Madame,” answered Chiffinch, “to the last 
detail !” 

“Why, was His Majesty so sure of me?” I asked, 
almost like a child. 

Will Chiffinch’s sharp dark features lit with a rare 
smile. “Sure of you?” he exclaimed; “when was His 
Majesty not sure of you?” 

Charles, that was something for me to remember, 
and I shall remember it for ever. 

And, my love who was never my lover, you and 
I only out of all our world knew my secret. Mon- 
mouth had not the vaguest suspicion that it was you 
who had my heart, nor had Lady Wentworth; there 
was not a friend (or an enemy) of yours or mine who 
guessed, nay, not even Sophia Carey, to whom the rest 
of my life was an open book. 

I loved you without return, but let no one say that 
I loved “in vain,” for it was a thing apart from that 
Great Reality, our amazing friendship from beginning 
to end. That was never influenced in the slightest 
degree by my love for you or your lack of love for 
me, thus I think I may claim for myself that in one 
way only I was an exceptional woman. 

As for you, Charles, I never met another man in the 
very least like you ! 


So at your bidding I came to live in your palace; 
so at your bidding I went away. That night I left 


My Last Interview with King Charles 363 


Whitehall and set mj face towards the open sea, and 
as our barge moved off down the river I looked but 
once behind me. “Good-bye,” I said under my breath. 
“Good-bye. But I shall come back.” 

Yes, I came back, but the next time I entered 
Whitehall King James II was on the throne, King 
Monmouth was lying dead in the Bell Tower, and 
King Charles was under the stone in Henry VII’s 
Chapel. 

My world had gone awry with me too, never to be 
straightened again. 




. 

- 













































f 












GOD SAVE THE KING! 





CHAPTER XXII 


GOD SAVE THE KING ! 

Through the long blue plain the wind is calling, 
Calling, calling, calling down the day; 

From a silver sky the night is falling, 

As the cloak of Death o’er quiet clay. 

Kings may die — but never dies the calling, 

Calling to our King away! 

Wind, be still, be still and cease your crying. 

Aching heart, what boots it that you ache? 

Death is not for those who crave for dying, 

Though it be for a dead Stuart’s sake. 

What is love to one in silence lying? 

One who sleeps and will not wake. 

M. N. 


Here follows a strange chapter in my life. 

Looking back, it is easy to see how I was caught 
for good — or for evil — in the web of Stuart misfortune, 
from which only the triple tragedy that followed was 
to loose me. 

When I arrived in Holland I found Monmouth 
the spoiled darling of William’s Court, and, as you 
know, Madame Carey, allowed to flirt and dance and 
skate with the Princess ; Henrietta was “recognised” 
(she and her mother had been sent for by Monmouth 
from England as soon as he left for good, and settled 
abroad) ; and there were of course many other exiled 
English — discontented Whigs chiefly. Later, I was to 
wish with all my heart there had not been! I have 
been re-reading some old French correspondence on 
the subject lately, and it all comes back to me, how 
William indulged Monmouth as much as Charles had 
367 


368 


My Two Kings 


done, gave him the run of his private apartments as 
he did nobody but Bentinck his lifelong friend, en- 
couraged him to play (there is no other word for it!) 
with his pretty young wife ; for Mary, though married 
for years, was still in her early twenties, as she was 
only born a few months before Monmouth’s marriage 
at fourteen; and, in fact, Henrietta and I saw his head 
turned more completely than it had been at White- 
hall ! Philadelphia was overflowing with ambition, 
but was terrified of William and rather afraid of 
Monmouth ! and she had the sense to be quiet ; 
Henrietta was also ambitious, and, unlike me, not 
convinced (Anna and I were alike there!) that all 
Monmouth’s future depended on Charles. She had 
never really liked the King, and resented his treat- 
ment of Monmouth; I always adored him, and knew 
he had let his son off only too lightly! We both 
together feared his associates — and fellow-exiles — we 
both foresaw their influence and where they would 
lead him, and, even though Charles was supposed to 
be better in health, we both knew we were living under 
the edge of a cloud that would shortly spread over all 
our sky. 

Also, though William was polite, I never felt sure 
whether he did not know precisely what my position 
in the town was, and my reasons, apart from my 
fondness for Monmouth and Lady Wentworth, for 
living there. She, at the bottom of her heart, 
chafed at her own situation, which, though apparently 
overlooked entirely by the Prince and Princess, 
brought her — rightly of course, one knows — much 
humiliation at times. She was quite certain of her 
lover, though, and he never showed the slightest waver- 
ing in his fidelity to her ; his flirtations with Mary we 
all understood, and all enjoyed, even William! — but 
there, too, William was to have the laugh of us all 
later on. 



Henrietta Lady Wentworth 






























* 








God Save the King ! 


369 


Charles knew; I dared not think of what I guessed 
was the truth of it all; Monmouth never understood. 
He was the popular young prince who sought to make 
everybody love him as usual, and succeeded beyond 
all his own expectations! he felt himself so favoured 
and safe that he could rashly worry Bentinck and in- 
furiate d’Avaux, who, be sure, kept Louis XIV posted, 
as we know, and he would listen to Henrietta’s be- 
seechings and my advice, and laugh at our fears, and 
politely disbelieve our facts. 

He cared not a straw for Philadelphia, who alarmed 
everybody as a rule, he worshipped Henrietta, but he 
swayed her, not she him, and he was as wax in the 
hands of the Fates who drew him on to his tragedy, 
and the men who artfully ministered to his Royal 
ambitions. Even Charles had never been able to check 
that. He had in his possession one of those proofs 
that just fail to prove his mother’s marriage, “the 
wish was father to the thought;” he was amazingly 
popular, and he fancied he could do everything with 
that popularity, especially in the face of his uncle’s 
religion. 

He loved Charles in a way — only in a way, alas! 
and it is perfectly certain he was laying all his plans 
and expecting his father’s death. I was dreading it, 
trying not to think of it, hoping and hoping to be 
recalled to England and Whitehall, much as I loved 
my life of travel that had ended at The Hague, amusing 
and interesting as it all was — but a dance under the 
smoke-pall on a volcano’s crust, as I knew, and, as 
I think, Henrietta guessed. 

I was often with her — or rather, she frequently came 
to my modest lodgings — but perhaps the strangest 
part of our intimacy was the way in which we never 
spoke of our deepest feelings at that time, except our 
mutual love for Monmouth. We lived for the day, 
as I know now, and we took things as they came. 


370 


My Two Kings 


Now and then I went to one of the more private balls 
William gave for Monmouth, and never have I seen 
any man shine in society as James did. He was the 
finished courtier, the gracious great gentleman to the 
life, with more than a touch of the Stuart fascination, 
the Stuart authority. There was a quaint likeness 
between himself and the Princess, a certain simplicity 
about them both as well as a physical resemblance. 

Mary was quite slim then, very tall, with dark 
brown hair shot with auburn, so near the Duke’s 
colouring; in features much like her father (and, 
in a way, Monmouth) as a young man. A delightful 
creature altogether, Mary: a truly good woman, an 
admirable wife, and, in those days, by no means alto- 
gether the crushed butterfly some writers make her 
out. No Stuart was ever quite crushable! — at any 
rate, when young. 

She had been little at Court before her marriage in 
1677, but we knew one another fairly well, and it is to 
be admitted she sought me out almost oftener than I 
had bargained for when I went to Holland, and loved 
to hear me talk of Whitehall. 

She worshipped William, and was devoutly loved 
by her people, but — Whitehall had been Whitehall! 
even to the girl of fifteen. Monmouth simply brought 
it with him; there again was a renewed attraction. 
She never wavered in her love for her husband, that 
I will swear, but she was without any doubt so fond 
of her kinsman that when the cloud grew and blotted 
out all that too short spell of gaiety and youth, Mary 
lost something which she never got back. It killed 
Henrietta, it ended all my real life, it took Monmouth 
over the inevitable, inescapable precipice, but for a 
little while, from about June 1684 till the beginning 
of 1685, we were all happy together out there. Mon- 
mouth and Henrietta went over — secretly, of course — 
to see Charles, as is told in the pocket-book, (“The 


God Save the King ! 


371 


way that I took when I went for England”), in the 
November, and all was forgiven, and they were both 
to return to Whitehall very shortly — they came back 
radiant from their secret journey! — when the blow fell, 
and “all was in the dust.” But that was not till the 
February. 

Monmouth was untiring. 

If he was not driving a traineau on the ice, as he 
used to do for Mary of Modena with a horse which 
only he and his father could manage, he was skating — 
of course he learnt in half a day, though Mary took 
much longer ! — or practising every new dance-step 
he could get hold of — there she was nearly as quick 
as he — or hunting with William, or making love to 
all the stolid stout Dutch ladies till they did not know 
if they were standing on their heads or their heels! 
or setting some new mode in dress (he it was who 
brought in the three-cornered hat we usually asso- 
ciate with William, in which he looked irresistible), or 
singing some new song to Henrietta’s playing — she 
was very musical, and used to fall into fits of helpless 
mirth over him, as he had a charming voice, a good 
ear, the ear of a perfect dancer, but no earthly musical 
talent. His life was a whirl, as usual, and yet with 
it all he found time to spend many happy hours in 
her company, and often he came to my discreet rooms 
— I had a most convenient back door in a bye-street 
— and met her there, and the Princess would some- 
times appear without warning, attended by just one 
lady, Mrs. Trelawney, typically Whitehall to the end 
of her Dutch career, or even only a waiting-woman, 
who would sit and gossip happily below-stairs with my 
faithful maid. 

You can see, I think, the old Dutch rooms, panelled 
with dark shining wood, their polished brasses and 
Dutch crockery, bowls and pots of bulbs, chequered 
cotton-cushioned chairs, homely comfort and cleanli- 


372 


My Two Kings 


ness, typical of the thrifty trim ways of that fair 
city, with its towering churches, its red roofs, its tree- 
set canals, its woods, its broad open squares. I loved 
Holland in a way; but there was never a mountain — 
it was all flat, flat, flat — and I come from the hills! 
Still, Monmouth was Dutch-born, and Mary was 
Dutch-wed, and Philadelphia was a naturalised English- 
woman only, and had many Dutch relations, so we 
did not feel strangers in that kindly land. I wrote 
my long secret despatches to Charles and sent them 
in many strange ways, and he sent, as is well known, 
letters to his son, sometimes unkind, sometimes re- 
lenting, but only those sealed with the small diamond- 
set seal were to be taken as real. Now and then he 
wrote to me, but very seldom — he generally sent me 
a message I could understand in Monmouth’s letters; 
Monmouth could not always see its drift! — and so 
the days went by, and I sat in the wide window, and 
wrote, or worked, or thought, and ached for Whitehall, 
and our James to be in power again, and for the old 
days that were gone for ever. 

I remembered Princess Mary’s tears on quitting 
England: “Madame, you were coming to Whitehall, 
but I am leaving it!” and once I reminded her of 
that phrase when she had come on foot and with but 
one waiting-woman, and she and I were sitting in the 
cosy brown room with its dark pictures and its gleam- 
ing brass. Mary’s auburn curls were heaped high on 
her graceful head, and her long short-sighted eyes 
narrowed and widened as she talked, easily filling with 
tears, easily sparkling as her father’s never did, very 
cautious in some directions with me (there I saw 
William’s warning!), very free in others, since I too 
was of her blood, and deep down in our hearts we 
were exiles together, as Stuarts who go on their travels, 
and those who go on their travels for Stuarts’ sake, 
must always be! 


God Save the King ! 


373 


I can see her leaning back in her chair, with a 
fleeting likeness to Charles, her beautiful chestnut- 
brown velvet hood and cloak, lined and trimmed with 
ruddy brown squirrel fur loosened in the warmth of 
the room, her plain but pretty winter gown of a paler 
shade of chestnut, with its fine lawn chemisette and 
frills, her brown gloves, her thick brown shoes and 
stockings that could never disguise the true Stuart 
foot — Mary, who as a slender slip of a girl on the 
brink of her teens had played Calisto to Henrietta’s 
Jupiter — oh! so long ago. 

I — with my grey locks piled high too, in a lace 
cap and kerchief about my shoulders, a deep carna- 
tion-red gown of Indian cashmere from the celebrated 
bazaars (for I dared be a trifle less simply attired in 
my own rooms!) a fine gold chain of Dutch work- 
manship with a pendant of worked gold and bosses 
of opaque dark coral and translucent cornelian — was 
busy with my embroidery frame, a safeguard, some- 
times, since I always had to be on the watch with the 
Princess, most of all when she spoke unguardedly to 
me. 

She liked Henrietta, but it was impossible for her 
to forget Anna Monmouth, one of her greatest friends, 
though some ten years her senior, at her uncle’s 
Court; and Henrietta, for her part, proud, sure of 
her own conscience, utterly refusing to be condoned 
as a mistress yet knowing she was no wife, was not 
the easiest person to deal with — with all the memories 
of the past behind both of them! And there were 
William’s orders to Mary, and Monmouth’s superb 
taking for granted that what he did was always right; 
perhaps, in the flush of his success, he was just 
a trifle blind to Henrietta’s actual position and to 
any difficulties whatever where his cousin Mary was 
concerned ! 

“He does as he pleases with us all,” said Mary 


374 


My Two Kings 


frankly, “just as I remember him years and years 
ago. Oh, but he makes me feel old, Madame Stuart ! 
He is not a minute older himself, and I — it is half 
my lifetime since then.” 

“You old, Highness?” I laughed. “Spare me , I am 
double your age! But does it matter? His Grace 
will never age; he is a boy in looks and, I fear me, 
in brains,” and I sighed and she sighed, but then we 
laughed together. 

“He — he goes through life at a gallop,” said 
Mary. “We were so quiet here, and he has made 
us dreadfully frivolous. The Prince” — she paused, 
and glanced sidelong at me as I think her great- 
great-grandmother Mary of Scots used to do — 
“the Prince seems to enjoy it vastly, I have never 
known him to care for pleasure before, why is it, 
Madame ?” 

“Nay, Highness,” I replied, deep in my work, 
“if you know not, how should I say? But M. de 
Monmouth is infectious in his gaiety; he makes an 
old woman like me feel young, aye, and be young, 
and as frivolous as the rest. Do you know, Madame, 
he came here yesterday” (I bit my lip; it was perhaps 
foolish to talk of his visits) “and said he had wearied 
all your ladies out with trying over that new contre- 
danse, and only you were still fresh, and he must 
needs show me how the steps went, and before I knew 
what I was about we had pushed back this table and 
the settle and I was being taught it from beginning 
to end!” 

“So now, Mistress, you have no excuse. You will 
come to our ball to-morrow night, and — come early, 
and you shall instruct M. Bentinck, who dances ad- 
mirably, but . . .” 

“‘But?’ Highness,” I smiled. “There is a 
‘but,’ is there not? Perhaps he will learn from me, 
a sedate old lady, and then when your ball begins, 


God Save the King! 875 

I will sit in a corner and watch you all, as becomes 
my white hairs.” 

“Yes, you will try to,” said Mary, leaning forward 
and laying a long Stuart hand on the edge of my 
embroidery frame, “and my cousin will suddenly 
appear before you, and bow” (how well I remember 
those bows!) “and you will find yourself led into the 
middle of the floor before you can protest. Why, he 
would have led out the Prince himself long before now 
had he been a lady! Be very brave, Madame, and 
ask his Highness to dance yourself. He will never 
refuse you.” 

“Will he not?” I thought, but only laughed. “Nay, 
the Prince and I are serious folk — we will watch you 
and His Grace. Ah, it is good to see two Stuarts 
dance once more!” 

“But I am a Stuart no longer,” she said quickly. 

“And what is James, Highness?” I asked, looking 
at her, and the colour rose in her fair face. “And 
I,” I went on as quickly, “what am I? A distant 
cousin, once the wife of another cousin.” “And 
what,” I said to myself, “what is the Prince? with 
his Stuart mother. How strangely un-Stuart and 
yet ” I thought of the Duke of York, and won- 

dered if those two, uncle and nephew, father-in-law 
and son-in-law, were not hopelessly antagonistic just 
because of a certain twinship of one side of their 
characters? I wondered; I wonder still. For I know 
now that never was hate more deadly than when Stuart 
hated Stuart. 


I gave way. I went to their Highnesses’ ball. I 
looked up some of my old Whitehall finery, and said 
to myself that for once I would be young again, to 
the delight of my maid, whose joy it was to make me 
fine. So the full uncut velvet skirts were shaken 


376 


My Two Kings 

out of their sandalwood coffer, their ivory only a 
trifle deepened, their charming gold embroidery, so 
pure a thread, untarnished, wrought into scallops 
like big cockle-shells all round the edges of the upper 
skirt, which was drawn back to show the under petti- 
coat, a satin just matching the gold, half hidden in 
lace. The corsage was draped about with lace twisted 
in and out with my long string of carved gold beads, 
the sash of cobweb gold tissue heavily weighted with 
great golden tassels, the little transparent shell-shaped 
cap rose above the high-dressed hair, held in place 
by a gold-set tortoise-shell comb confining the light 
veil of tissue as fine as gilt gossamer, the golden 
shoes, the stockings worked with gold, the big gilt 
fan — no, I would not disgrace England at this my 
last ball — here. My last ball — anywhere? A dull 
depression settled on my heart as I turned from my 
mirror and let my woman wrap my great furred cloak 
around me. Why last? Were we not all going back 
to England soon, to our beloved Whitehall, where 
we danced twice and thrice a week? Of course we 
were ! and to-night we would be as gay and show 
them we had not forgotten. . . . “Madame must guard 
against a chill,” my maid was saying. “The storms 
are over at length” (we had had a fortnight’s rough 
weather and no packets had been able to cross), “but 
to-night it is still — still! See the stars, and listen 
how those great clumsy wheels ring on the heavy 
stones. The chair waits, Madame,” and I was shut 
carefully into my sedan among my furs, and went 
forth into the bitter night. “Now the mails will come 
in surely, surely,” I said to myself, as I started for 
the Huis ten Bosch — it had been hard work waiting 
all those long days; it seemed an age since we had 
heard from England. 

Since it was the last ball to which I ever went, it 
is worth remembering. 


God Save the King ! 377 

The Dutch were stolid, sober folk, but when they 
chose they could make a brave display. Their men 
were fine upstanding creatures, heavily handsome, 
some in the more English fashion of fair William 
Bentinck, some with the magnificent colouring of 
the favourite of William’s later life, Keppel, who 
was made Albemarle. The women in their youth 
were splendid Rubens wenches, all cream and roses 
and masses of flaxen hair ; they could not take 
their eyes from Monmouth and their Princess, who 
opened the ball with an exquisite minuet. Mary, at 
her brightest, in high if nervous spirits, and a truly 
lovely gown of orange satin over a petticoat of pearl 
embroidery draped with Flanders lace fringed with 
pear-shaped pearls; Monmouth (but neither could I 
look away from him!) at his incredibly handsomest, 
from head to foot in white silk brocaded with silver 
and diamonds, diamond buttons, shoe-buckles, a 
diamond-hilted sword, a tall, slight, infinitely graceful 
figure with the perfect balance and poise of an athlete, 
rider, runner, and dancer; matched, in the marvellous 
measure they trod together on the dark polished floor, 
by the fair smiling flushed Lady Mary of old days, 
nearly as fine a dancer as he, and quite as fond of it ! — 
a sight I shall not forget, and one to whose memory 
I return and return. 

Over all, William on the raised dais, his keen 
hawk’s eyes taking everything in, his firm lips relaxed 
in a gracious smile, his dress unusually rich — violet 
velvet and black satin, with a splendidly embroidered 
sash and inlaid sword — watching, as I watched, watched 
and wondered what was behind that smile and those 
brilliant hazel eyes that saw everything, and looked 
out beyond everything. 

Men whom I knew bowed, stood by my chair, paid 
the usual compliments, passed on, one or two (in 
whose eyes I saw a faint surprise and an arrested 


378 


My Two Kings 


curiosity as they took in the details of my unusual 
toillete!) lingering longer; women I was acquainted 
with, passing with their attendant cavaliers, pausing 
for a few smiling easy words, and again (to my amuse- 
ment) with an interested scrutiny of my gown. I 
kept my chair in the quietest corner of the great 
saloon, and looked and listened, laying up for 
myself eye-memories of a wonderful scene, return- 
ing a word or two in the French that was as 
natural to me as English in Whitehall to M. d’Avaux, 
a tiny passing duel of words, (we hated each other 
and smiled all the sweeter in consequence!) a short 
conversation with M. Bentinck, who was less phleg- 
matic and more animated than was his wont, very 
handsome in blue silks, with a sort of restlessness about 
him I had seldom seen, and an air of distraction for 
all he endeavoured to make himself more agreeable 
than usual. 

Under the whole atmosphere, as the night went 
on, there came clearer and clearer to me that sense 
of hidden unrest, of tension, as of a waiting for some 
event — some news — and what? I was glad Lady 
Wentworth had refused, pleading indisposition ; I 
felt more and more nervous, and she would have 
increased it; at last I was aware that I wanted to 
scream ! I rallied myself, tried to imagine what would 
happen if I suddenly rose and ran into the middle 
of the floor and cried out: “What is it?” And as 
I thought these words, they seemed to ring in my 
ears, to be whispered in the swish of the dancers’ feet, 
to be echoed in the dying murmur of the music as the 
dancing ceased. 

At that moment there was a little stir among the 
knot of gentlemen near William’s seat, some one 
spoke to Bentinck, bowed quickly and disappeared; 
Bentinck swiftly drew close to William and bent over 
the carved back of his chair. William never looked 


God Save the King! 


379 


at him, but nodded, then motioned him away with 
an almost imperceptible movement of his right hand. 
Something occurred to me at that moment — “The 
mails are in, there is news. What is it ?” — and I caught 
the arms of my chair and gripped them; and then 
the crowd about me parted, a light footfall sounded 
beside me, a ringing boyish voice cried out my name, 
Monmouth was bowing before my seat, and before I 
knew it — just as the Princess had predicted! — he had 
caught up both my hands from the arms of my chair, 
devoid of all ceremony, laughing, explaining, giving 
me no time to think, leading me into the middle of 
the gleaming floor. 

“Just one — our old Dutch dance, my cousin — just 
to show how we used to dance it; how” — his voice 
sank — “we are going to dance it again overseas, soon, 
soon, soon !” and the music struck up and I was 
sinking down in the great sweeping curtsey at the 
beginning without a protest, my white and gold skirts 
spreading about me. I can see now the mirrored tip 
of my gold shoe in the parquet dark as polished agate, 
and the reflected shimmer in Monmouth’s brown 
eyes, alight with mischief and mirth, as we began. 
“Aha! I vowed I would do it!” he whispered in my 
ear, as we floated slowly through the old familiar 
movements of the opening measure, “I wagered the 
Princess!” and the music swept us apart. “Bravo, 
Madame! this is how we shall dance again as of old 
before His Majesty, and he will laugh, and applaud, 
and say. . . 

“Bravo!” 

Bravo? The voice was not Monmouth’s, nor the 
laugh which accompanied it. As I rose from the last 
curtsey I looked wildly round me, for the glittering 
crowd had receded — even William’s dark face and 
Mary’s, smiling, amused — and we two stood in the 
centre of the great room, but beside us was a tall 


380 


My Two Kings 


figure is sable satins, laughing night-dark eyes under 
heavy black curls, white teeth showing between curved 
lips — why was the King, my King, my cousin Charles 
standing there? — applauding lightly, smiling, looking 
from one to the other! 

“Why, Sire!” I cried with a little delighted 
gasp and turned joyfully to Monmouth; and then, 
puzzled beyond description at his blank uncon- 
cernedness, faltered, and turned back again to His 
Majesty, to curtsey, to greet him, to laugh with 
him, to thank him — and his son and I were alone 
in the middle of the ball-room, Monmouth looking 
at me with his unchanged bright smile and a jest 
on his lips that died away as he saw the horror on 
my face. 

He did not comprehend, but he had not had twenty 
years at Court training for nothing; my hand was 
caught and held firmly, I was swiftly drawn back 
to my chair, through a maze of curious puzzled eyes 
that searched mine, amid a silence made more silent 
by the hush of breaths drawn quickly, and I was in 
my seat in the corner, Monmouth beside me still — 
still holding a hand which (I could feel it myself) was 
growing cold as a stone. He bent over me. “Sit back, 
do not try to speak, you are faint, we took that last 
passage too fast.” 

I tried to shake my head; I looked up into his kind, 
concerned, mystified eyes, and the wreath of lights 
about the saloon and the shimmering, glowing crowd 
swung round and turned dark, and cold, and retreated 
miles away. I covered my face with both my hands. 
I remember one of Monmouth’s pages at my elbow 
with a cup of spiced wine; I recollect Anne Trelawney 
on her knees by my side holding a gold pomander 
under my nose, I recollect so well the design of it, 
and the sharp sweet scent, and the deplorable way 
in which her delightful peach-pink silken draperies were 


God Save the King ! 


381 


crushed on the floor as she knelt, and dimly marvelled 
at the alarm in her looks. 

Their Highnesses passed out between the bowing 
company, the crowd dispersed swiftly, Monmouth, 
still pausing to see that I was attended to, was sum- 
moned to follow. He spoke to the gentleman, one 
of William’s A.D.C.’s, with slight impatience. “I’ll 

attend his Highness shortly, but Madame Stuart ” 

and then the man interrupted him and said some- 
thing I could not catch. “Immediately? I’ll follow,” 
and he was beside me again and took hold of the 
wrist of one of the hands still covering my face. 
“My cousin, forgive me, I must leave you. I do 
not understand, but the Prince has had important 
news, he has broken up the ball; I am to join him 
in his cabinet at once, I must go. Mrs. Trelawney, 
her Highness has sent a message to excuse your further 
attendance on her to-night, will you take Madame 
Stuart home as soon as she has recovered? I will 
send you back in my coach. Good-night — forgive 
me !” and he was gone, and Anne Trelawney, her 
pretty, silly, recklessly-laughing face haggard and 
drawn, was beside me again. “Oh, Madame, can 
you walk? — come this way,” and we were in a little 
ante-room opening out of the ball-room, and, with 
her arm round me, she led me to a sofa by a bright 
fire. Somehow my cloak was there, brought by 
Monmouth’s page, who, at a glance from her, slipped 
swiftly away again. 

I had never liked what I had seen of Mrs. Trelawney. 
I had suspected, as was afterwards known, that she 
was the tool of the Duke of York (what was I but 
Charles’s informant after all?) and she was an empty- 
headed, over-dressed, flighty creature, even if there 
were no real harm in her; but to-night, all Whitehall 
flooded back like a great wave as she sat down beside 
me on the little couch and held both my hands tightly. 


382 


My Two Kings 


“No,” she said to me soothingly, “no, you were not 
faint. It is — it was — something else. I saw your 
face as the dance ceased. You spoke, Madame,” (her 
eyes grew wide and dark, and her voice sank) “to 
whom did you speak? Something — some one — nobody 
else saw — you puzzled his Grace. He saw nought; 
you turned from him and you greeted . . . and back 
to my lord Duke, then again away, and your face 
turned grey and your eyes stared, so, and her High- 
ness half rose from her chair and said sharply, ‘There 
is somewhat amiss, Anne, go to her! — quick,’ and the 
Duke took you back to your place, and you looked 
at him and at me and at all the company as if you 
did not see us.” 

“Aye,” I said, “I saw you ! But I did not see — what 
I had seen.” 

“Whom?” said Anne Trelawney, quivering all 
over. “Ah, do not speak — I know. I heard what 
you said. They — if they heard — did not understand. 
There is something terrible abroad to-night. The 
Prince has had despatches. I heard M. Bentinck 
whispering, he waited with her Highness till your 
measure was over. Oh, Madame! I saw you dance 
that, the night of my first ball at Whitehall, you and 

the ” Her voice died away; she held my hands 

more tightly and looked hard into my face. I was 
calmer than she by that time. The firelight played 
on our glistening gowns, rose and ivory, gold and 
pearls, on the rich Dutch marquetry furniture, the 
quaint porcelain (the Princess’s pride), the glowing 
dark Dutch pictures, men and women, flowers and fruit, 
the dusky velvet hangings, the dusky velvet carpet 
beneath our feet. 

“I remember,” I said, “nearly half your lifetime ago, 
Mistress, nine — ten years ! I remember. I danced that 
coranto with the King. . . 

She let go my hands and rose suddenly, putting 


God Save the King ! 


383 


aside one of the heavy curtains and looking out into 
the night. I sat where I was, while she sought in 
the crowded courtyard below for the coach that was 
to take me back, and looked over her head at the 
stars, diamond-clear in a sky of black ice, all the 
storm over, at peace; and as I looked I said sound- 
lessly to myself, “The King — the King — the King.” 


She took me back to my lodgings, Monmouth’s 
page attending us, and Monmouth’s footmen ; she 
went away in the fine gilt coach with a smile and a 
bright farewell to me before the servants, and I went 
slowly upstairs to my bedroom with my maid behind 
me. I sat down before the glass with a gesture of 
utter weariness, then shook myself quickly and looked 
straight into the mirror — only for a moment, for my 
eyes fixed themselves on the reflection of my woman’s 
face behind mine. I did not speak, but in the glass 
our eyes met. “They say the mail-packet has been 
in these two hours,” she said slowly. “They say there 
is news out of England. Have you heard, Madame? — 
do you know?” 

“I have not heard,” I said. “No, not heard. But 
I know,” and suddenly I laughed and rose from my 
chair. “God save the King!” I cried softly, and as 
I said it, I wheeled round upon her. “Go — I do not 
need you — I ” 

She turned to the door. 

“Good-night, Madame,” her hand was on the latch. 
“God the save the King, Madame, hut wliich King? 
God send you sweet sleep,” and the door was shut 
and I was alone, standing in my bravery before the 
lighted looking-glass. I made a swift step and ex- 
tinguished the candles, felt my way to the broad 
window-seat, drew back the curtains, and looked out 
over the sleeping town and up to those eternal stars, 


384 


My Two Kings 


that seemed to have been shining for years over my 
head. I flung open the casement and let in a rush 
of keen air — air with a whiff of the sea in it, air that 
seemed to dance with the swinging music of a hundred 
chimes that rang midnight over the city of my exile, 
that rang down the curtain on the last act of my life 
as servant, as subject, as kinswoman, as friend of 
King Charles. I stood still and erect till they had 
died away, and then I shut the window and crept back 
into the darkness. 

“God save the King!” I said aloud. “God save you, 
my King. God send you sweet sleep,” and I fell on 
my knees by the bedside. 


MY LAST INTERVIEW WITH KING 
MONMOUTH 
























1 






» 













































CHAPTER XXIII 


MY LAST INTERVIEW WITH KING MONMOUTH 

You saw but the dream awry 
Of a Royal crown, 

A golden sun in your sky, 

That in blood went down; 

A future of Heaven-in-Hell, 

And Fame that lured and leered, 

Life that you loved too well, 

And Death you feared, 

Glory that turned to shame 
And misery wan; 

— As only a King you came, 

But you died a Man! 

M. N. 

The cold grey dawn crept slowly into my room, and 
found me lying straight and stiff in the big four-post 
bed, my hands clenched by my sides, great tears 
rolling slowly down out of the corners of my eyes 
and soaking into my hair. The next morning! — the 
awful next morning that we all have to endure after 
our dear present has fallen to pieces and left us face 
to face with our own loneliness and the long years of 
an empty future. 

I loved the King, and the King was dead. Oh, my 
cousin Charles! Not the little fainting Queen whose 
cry for pardon was her farewell, not Louise de 
Querouaille whose long reign was over, not poor 
merry Nelly whose name was the last on your lips, 
were more heartbroken than your faithful Charlotte 
Stuart who was nothing whatever to you. Nothing 
at all! Will any man understand — would you have 
understood? — that I smiled through my tears and 

38T 


388 


My Two Kings 


shook my head as I thought of that, and was glad, 
glad all the love had been on my side. Women are 
strange. Yet I had never wanted you to care, I think 
I had wanted you not to care. It was part of my 
service and my giving, therein lay my pride, perhaps 
my wisdom. Silly woman as I always was, there for 
once I had been wise. But you died, cousin Charles, 
and the soul Milady Cleveland had vowed I could never 
again call my own was at my disposal once more. The 
King’s bondswoman was free. 


All night long the air of the single coranto rang 
in my head. All night your son and I re-trod on the 
shining floor the little Dutch dance that Lucy Walter 
had taught you both, and the first rays of light fell on 
ivory and golden draperies lying on the couch where 
they had been cast the night before, my beautiful 
Whitehall gown. My golden fan lay beside it — 
with a sort of faint wonder I noticed that its gleaming 
sticks were snapped across. I raised myself on my 
elbow and looked at them both with the eyes of a 
nun who has put off for the last time the vanities of 
this world. My lodgings were very still. The only 
sound audible was the slow, heavy ticking of the 
huge Dutch clock in the entry below. “All — over, 
all — over, all — over!” All was over indeed; a friend, 
a protector, and the kindest of masters was gone; 
an enemy sat in his place — mine, and, implacably 
and unchangingly, James’s. Why, from what I knew, 
James’s very life would be in danger in England. 
Well, he was not in England! Had he been there, 

and the Duke of York here in his stead The 

tortured brain went round and round, always coming 
back, as a mind will when half crazed by some tre- 
mendous shock, to what might have been rather than 
to what is. There were some things that even I (who, 


My Last Interview with King Monmouth 389 

coward as I am, never shirk from facing all possi- 
bilities) dared not dwell on then. I wrenched my 
thoughts away, and the old coranto went gaily on; 
I heard the whisper of velvet and lace slipping over 
polished boards, the sip-sip of our shoes, the murmur 
of Monmouth’s mischievous asides. My dear James — 
neither could I bear to think of him now in his grief 
and his despair. But there was nothing I could bear 
to think of. I had lost all the past, I saw before me 
the desolation of the future, as for the present, the 
solid ground failed beneath my feet. 

So came James of York into his kingdom, and 
Monmouth’s fair chateau en Espagne crumbled and 
fell down into dust. I think Monmouth must have 
been a Stuart without any doubt, he was so desper- 
ately unfortunate. All would have gone otherwise had 
Charles recalled him three weeks earlier — and he had 
not. Even in the first outburst of frenzied distress 
I do not think Monmouth in the least realised how 
completely wrecked was his castle in Spain by the 
simple fact of his uncle’s being at Whitehall in power 
and he exiled in Holland. Reverse those circumstances 
— and History might well have been changed. I do 
not know, but I think — I think! 

So the end came for Monmouth, not at Sedge- 
moor, not on Tower Hill, but in William’s cabinet 
after the ball, when the Stadtholder broke to his guest 
and cousin the news of his father’s death. It would 
seem that Fortune had had enough of James Walter! 
From that moment she turned her back on him, and 
I would with all my heart that he had seen her do 
it. Did she smile on James Stuart? Not for long! 
There exist three portraits of the sailor king that I 
think of at this juncture, two painted by Kneller and 
one by Le Troy. Well do I know them! The first 1 


i The National Portrait Gallery. 


390 


My Two Kings 


was executed in May 1685 — the new monarch stands 
smiling, triumphant, successful, his Crown and Orb 
by his side, his Sceptre in his hand, the regal ermine 
robes about his tall handsome figure, the tumbling 
waves of his seas in the background. The world 
went very well then! The next picture 1 was painted 
as a present for Samuel Pepys, and while James was 
sitting for it they brought him news that William was 
coming with his great fleet on the wings of the Pro- 
testant wind. He still smiles, uneasily, mournfully, 
the sun has gone in, the glory has departed, it is harder 
work wearing dead men’s shoes than waiting for them ! 
And the third portrait 2 comes from France. There 
are the insignia of Royalty, majesty of profusely 
curled peruke, laces, jewels, shining armour and 
Garter ribbon, and the worn, haggard face of a broken 
man in exile — a king whose castle also has crumbled 
into dust. 

Who won after all, James of York or James of 
Monmouth ? 


And thus ended all our hopes — nay, let me say, 
all mine. For, as the world knows, Monmouth left 
the Prince and Princess of Orange, left all the gay 
doings and light-hearted merriment he had brought 
to the Dutch Court — and with his leaving, all gaiety 
left it too — and went away at once, taking with him 
Henrietta Wentworth only, and after a while settled 
down at Gouda in a little house, among fine trees near 
the beautiful great church, shut in by high garden 
walls, a place of peace, could Peace have stayed any- 
where with Monmouth ! Philadelphia went among 
Dutch relations, innocent visits, seemingly; but her 

1 In the possession of Miss Pepys-Cockerell. 

2 At Belhus. 


My Last Interview with King Monmouth 391 

ambition was still unquenched, and now I can guess 
at her work, since I know what was the work done 
by the English and Scottish exiles within the following 
few weeks. 

As for me — which was darker, the present or the 
future? My light was out. But we do not cease to 
live because our day is over. I had audience with 
the Princess once (she sent for me) ; it was a difficult 
meeting for both of us. She had been bidden to con- 
vey to me a hint that it would be better I should 
return to England, that was plain; I read it in her 
face when first I saw her. I for my part had some- 
thing to discover if I could — William’s real attitude. 
I remember little of what we said, we were both so 
careful that I think our very care betrayed each of 
us; indeed at the end we smiled at each other as I 
rose to take my leave. 

“Highness,” I said. “This is farewell, I think; but 
I have to thank you for all your kindness. If I go 
back to Whitehall” — I paused — “«/, Highness, may I 
say to — to His Majesty your father that you send 
him assurances of your love and duty?” 

This was perilous work, but I was past all fear. 
My world had broken over my head like a many- 
coloured bubble, and I at least owed no allegiance 
to William of Orange. Her eyes flashed for a mo- 
ment, and then her face softened. “Go you to 
Whitehall, Madame?” she asked in return. “To 
assure the King my father of your own duty?” 
and when I threw up a hand like a man touched 
in a fencing-bout, and smiled awry and made my 
curtsey, she took my fingers between her own and 
held them a moment, and looked at me sadly with 
those beautiful brown Stuart eyes of hers, and we 
stood silent together, and together our cheeks were 
wet with tears. “Good-bye, Madame,” she said, 
“and a good journey, wherever you go. Our youth 


392 


My Two Kings 


is over, I think. If you see the Duke of Mon- 
mouth ” and she broke off. “Yes?” I asked, and 

waited ; but she shook her head, and smiled again 
through her tears — and so I parted from the Lady 
Mary. 

When I next met her she was on the English 
throne. 

All this time — it seemed endless to me, but in 
reality it was n.ot long — I heard nothing from Mon- 
mouth, but there came letters from Henrietta some- 
times, and she, who had somehow drawn back from 
me nearly all the time when outwardly things went 
well for us all in Holland, now wrote, if guardedly, 
yet with a note of underlying affection which glad- 
dened my heart. She had been very ill indeed with 
a miscarriage not so many months before, and at the 
time of the King’s death it was believed she had 
further hopes — at least, she went nowhere, and so 
allowed it to be understood. Her first child, born 
in my house at St. Stephen’s, did not live very long, 
but she had a splendid boy born at Toddington in 
1682; after his birth she never seemed to me really 
strong, and she certainly came near death in her 
illness in the spring of 1684, nearly a year past. She 
wrote but little of her health, but her once fine clear 
writing was shaky, and underlying all she said of the 
Duke ran a strain of anxiety not without a touch of 
exaltation, at which I guessed, and the reason for which 
I feared. 

I thought everything over, and made my plans. I 
had my few belongings packed and they were taken 
secretly to England for me in the ship of a Dutch 
captain related to the good woman who kept my 
lodgings; my maid and I, in the lightest travelling 
order, removed to Amsterdam and lay there for a 
night or two, finding the place seething with gossip 
and the exiles seemingly busy. In after years I was 


My Last Interview with King Monmouth 393 

to see something of Jacobite activities for James IPs 
luckless son, and I remembered and marvelled at 
the same feverish semi-secret turmoil, the much- 
whispered and the little done ! But I wished to 
hear all there was to be heard from head-quarters, 
and I sent a message to Gouda asking Henrietta if 
I might come out to them for one day. Back came 
an answer at once, and a line from Monmouth 
scribbled under Henrietta’s charming reply, bidding 
me most welcome, quoting the old saying I was wont 
to use to him in the days at St. Stephen’s: “This 
house is yours”; but I would not stay there, I wished 
only to see them both, and then I would go back to 
Scotland, or, if he wished it, to England, and serve 
him there in secret if I could serve him at all. I must 
see for myself — why, in five minutes I should know 
Monmouth’s designs, merely by looking at his face! 
Surely, since I had always read him so well, I could 
do it still? 

I went absolutely alone. In my deepest mourn- 
ing, plain to a nun-like simplicity, with the large 
enfolding cloak and closely drawn hood over all, I 
looked nothing more or less than a respectable 
burgess’s dame on her lawful occasions. The barge 
that slowly and cumbrously conveyed me along the 
sluggish canal set me on the path, as I knew, a 
hundred yards from the high brick wall and discreet 
doorway I was in search of. About me the spring 
was bursting into leaf, the fields where the bulbs 
were grown were already gemmed with colour — I 
might be going back to an English spring! What 
would it hold for England? I put away that thought 
and sought my destination. Monmouth’s butler, a 
man who had followed his fortunes almost ever since 
his boyish marriage (who was later to tell a strange 
and awful tale of a survival of the Bloody Assize), 
admitted me with the privileged greeting of an old 


894 


My Two Kings 


friend, and Henrietta Wentworth, ceremony dispensed 
with, ran down the brick path between the tulips to 
meet me. I was taken at once into her little parlour — 
I must put up with her company alone for a while — 
a messenger had just ridden over, some gentlemen 
were expected momently, but they would not stay long, 
meantime . 

“Meantime, His Majesty is deep in affairs, how 
else?” I said, and looked at her. The quick colour 
flooded her face, her eyes — those strange long eyes 
that darkened to black at moments of emotion — shot 
a half-terrified, half-elated look at me, and her quick 
flow of talk checked, for spite of the brilliant carmine 
in her cheeks, the light in her eyes, perhaps because 
of them, I was horrified to see how ill she looked — 
thin, transparent almost, as if the flame of her spirit 
were burning in too frail a lantern. “My child!” I 
cried in distress, “but you, how are you ? I heard — 
but is it true?” 

“Hush,” she whispered, looking hastily round 
her, and going over to the open window to shut it 
(I can see her fine profile now, clear against the 
lattice and the gay green and glowing world of leaf 
and blossom outside) ; then she came back, and sat 
down by me. “No, it is not true — not that. But 
you must not tell — him , even. I am not very well, 
Madame” — she looked at her* thin hands locked in 
her lap — “but it will pass. I shall be better later on. 
But I am staying behind — here, and he thinks I 

cannot accompany him, because Madame, it 

must be thus. He must not think — have any anxiety 
on my account; he has so much, so many other things 
to deal with.” 

So I was answered, without a question. He was 
full of affairs, he had much to worry him, she was re- 
maining in Holland, he was going. . . . 

We sat and looked steadily at each other. My 


My Last Interview with King Monmouth 395 

lips tried to form the word: “When?” but there was 
no need. 

“As soon as may be,” she answered my thoughts, 
“but there is much to do, and my Lord Argyle is 
in so desperate a haste, and there is no money ! 
but the advices out of England are hopeful — oh! so 
much is promised, so many are only waiting his 
landing; he wished for delay for prudence’ sake” — 
the tawny eyes clouded a little — “but they all press 
him. They are ready, all seems, all is in train; he 
cannot, he will not hold back. Early next month, we 
believe, and then, he will send for me. Ah, Madame!” 
and she caught my shoulders, “I shall be well again, 
oh, quite well in England; we shall all be well, all will 
be well ! And you ?” 

“I go next week,” I said, I, who did not know 
that I was going at all five minutes earlier ! “I 
shall be at St. Stephen’s, quietly; if there is aught 
I can do — beforehand — you must tell me, but I’ll 
talk it over, if there be time, with His Majesty”; 
and here, undemonstrative, proud, self-controlled 
woman as she was, she suddenly burst into tears and 
hid her face on my shoulder, her arms going round 
my neck. “Oh, my friend, my friend!” but no 
further words came. There was a step in the pas- 
sage, a light swift step; through the lattice I could 
see the butler conducting two or three gentlemen to 
the gate. Henrietta was out of my arms, her eyes 
dry, her face composed in a serene smile, before 
the door flew open and Monmouth came in with a 
rush. 

“Cousin, your pardon — I am always asking your 
pardon! — forgive me, as ever,” and he came at me 

with outstretched hands. “Why ?” for I had 

eluded this greeting, had sunk in the deep, swooning 
Whitehall curtsey at his feet. 

“Your Majesty’s servant!” I said, and rose, to 


396 


My Two Kings 


be caught, as I recovered from my salutation, by both 
hands, and kissed soundly on both cheeks. 

“A plague on your ceremoniousness!” he said to 
me, laughing, his eyes crinkling up in the old way, his 
colour, like Henrietta’s, mounting under the warm olive 
of his skin, like a delighted boy. “Who am I to you 
but James? What other shall I ever be?” 


Alas, alas, what other? I look back at it all now, 
and wonder how it is that I, old, white-haired, all my 
life done, all my future as dead and buried as my past, 
can still be living, while that life and laughter, that 
youth and vitality incarnate, lie cold and still in a 
dishonoured grave. 

It is not possible — but it is true. 

And Charles, who had parted from me calling me 
cousin as did his son, kissing me, laughing, jesting, 
lies as cold and still under a plain square flagstone 
in Westminster Abbey. Back into my mind came, not 
a memory of the gay light-hearted past, but a vision 
of the long canal down which I had just travelled, 
that stretched behind my slowly-surging barge, out 
of sight in the green distance that lay before me, 
through the little town and out beyond, direct, inex- 
orable as Fate. 

So, as a drowning man is supposed to see all his 
life in a flash, did I, in an instant’s thought, see a 
straight, unchanging line run through all I knew and 
loved — my life, that was to be lived somehow, some- 
where, in spite of everything. So have I felt with this 
life — it is all the same. Everything changes, but one 
goes on. 


It was late in the afternoon when I saw Monmouth 
alone. “Rest — make her rest, cousin, she’s too 


My Last Interview with King Monmouth 397 

easily tired,” with a hand on Henrietta’s shoulder 
and an appeal to me, and she smiled and laid her 
cheek down on his hand and left the room with just 
one glance that caught my eye as she passed out. 
Did he not see? But he saw nothing. “She would 
be better later on,” he assured me (her own words!). 
“She was anxious, and women take these things 
hard, but — well, when we all meet again, my cousin, 
why then we’ll have no more anxiety, no more tired- 
ness, no more ceremony, eh? Oh yes, for once, perhaps, 
when you come to Court for the first time as my Lady 
Stuart !” 

“James, James,” I said, “you go too fast for me. 
Am I to be ennobled? — coronets in your pocket already 
for all your ladies?” 

“For all my dear, devoted, faithful friends,” he 
replied, serious now. “You will see I shall not 
forget.” I stopped in the middle of the garden 
path we were pacing side by side ; somehow that 
speech hurt as nothing he had ever said before had 
hurt me. It was the old inuendo, the old accusa- 
tion levelled against Charles, Ms forgetfulness of his 
friends ; this to me who had adored him, whom he 
had never forgotten. One by one faces passed 
before my mind’s eye — faces of men, a few, and of 
women, a many — that had been forgotten, not by 
Charles, but by the young man standing at my side, 
swinging a careless cane over the early tulips and 
laughing to see their handsome heads fall as he struck 
them. 

But of what use was it to speak? Had I expected 
a house of mourning? Henrietta had never cared 
for the King, and Monmouth, heigho ! Monmouth 
was full of coming kingship for himself, for a great 
future, another Restoration, and an ending of more 
Stuart travels, port after stormy seas. The Stuarts 
— ah, they forgot! and they never remembered that 


398 


My Two Kings 


they had forgotten. Of what use was it to remind a 
Stuart? One laughed — and went on. So we went 
on, laughing, and left the tulips’ severed heads on the 
garden path. 

Henrietta carried me up to her chamber before 
the hour for the arrival of the returning barge, and 
we said farewell there. Monmouth had given me a 
key to his cypher, I was to await instructions on my 
arrival in England, he would write; meanwhile, would 
I write to Henrietta? whose mother was to join and 
stay with her, and I must send my letters from England 
through certain safe Dutch hands, “and so the vigilance 
of my uncle James and the — say, the curiosity — of 
my cousin William will not be tried by your corre- 
spondence!” (Another gay laugh; “he laughs too 
much,” I said to myself, “he is trying to make himself 
feel sure.”) 

I bade no long drawn-out adieux to Lady Went- 
worth, and yet I wondered in my heart if I should 
ever see her again. Before I went I put my hand 
into my black gown, unfastened a clasp, and drew 
forth my beautiful string of black pearls, my sole re- 
maining jewel of any value, and laid it quietly on her 
toilette-table. “That may be worth a few troopers 
to J ames !” I said. 

I laughed, I kissed her, I refused to listen to any 
protests, I bade her rest again, and went quickly down 
the stairs, since the hour had come for the barge to 
pass on its return journey. 

Monmouth was at the gate and drew my hand 
through my arm. “Come, cousin Charlotte,” he 
said, “I will set you on your way, and you shall 
wish me God-speed on mine. And when you come 
to Whitehall, my dear, you shall not come in these 
trappings of woe,” and he looked sideways at my 
sable draperies. I made an effort and altered my 
mood to his. 


My Last Interview with King Monmouth 399 

“No, I’ll fly” — I dropped my voice to the merest 
whisper — “I’ll fly the King’s colours, the Whig blue! 
I’ll have a new gown if I have to sell St. Stephen’s 
Farm to buy it.” 

“Nay, you shall send the bill in to me,” he laughed. 
“I will pay. I swear that I’ll pay all debts, even my 
own !” 

At this moment there came a gentleman galloping 
in much haste along the towing-path, reining up almost 
on the top of us, with an important air, and a great 
flourish of his hat. 

“Grey, of course,” said Monmouth, “and on urgent 
business as ever, also of course. I’faith, he shall 
wait.” 

“Never because of me,” I said firmly. “See, the 
barge is in sight. Go, I would not keep you.” And 
as he wavered irresolutely for a moment: “Why, 
take him within at least,” I laughed bravely, “it will 
be some minutes yet, see, I will walk up and down 
awhile.” 

“I will return,” cried Monmouth, wheeling round 
and running lightly towards the gate where Lord Grey 
was at that moment dismounting. “Await me — just 
one word with him — I must take leave of you. I can- 
not let you go like this !”• — and he was gone. I saw 
them enter, the barge drew nearer and nearer, ponder- 
ously, irresistibly, paused at the little landing-stage, 
and waited for me, the sole passenger, to come aboard. 
I hesitated, I looked over my shoulder, but the door 
was shut, and it remained shut. I never saw it open 
again. I stepped on to the barge, and the heavy 
vessel creaked and groaned and drove forward once 
more through the oily water; and so Monmouth left 
me, and never in life came back. 


But in death he came back to me, I, at least, 


400 


My Two Kings 

took my leave of him, at peace, his travels all over, 
lying on his bier in the Bell Tower on the night oi 
July the 15th. And I came not to greet him, but to 
set him on his way and wish him God-speed, not in 
the gay blue gown, but in the same black weeds, to 
see the last of the Stuart who had forgotten even 
to say good-bye to me. No, they never said it — 
Charles would not, when he sent me to Holland; Mon- 
mouth did not, when he sent me back to England. Why 
should there be parting phrases between us, since we 
have never been parted? “What’s Death? — you’ll love 
me yet !” 


But I would not have you think it was all sad, 
or that it is all sad even now. If I remember so 
well how I quitted those two men so very dear to 
me, yet there is this — that we parted with smiles 
and we bade no farewell, for one would not have 
it said, and the other did not. So I think of them, 
now that I have naught more to do, not of the 
days when they were busy or careless or sinful, 
not of the times when they were worried or un- 
happy or in danger, not as growing older, not as 
drawing near death, not as dead ; but as the 
kind, witty, beloved King I served, and the dear, 
gay, sweet-tempered prince his son ; and sitting 
alone in the twilight, I hear the echo of their 
laughter and feel the touch of their fingers on 
mine and their lips on my cheek, I meet bright 
brown eyes, I listen to the sound of light steps, 
catch the sparkle of jewels, the click of high heels, 
the clink of a scabbarded sword. And you may 
read your histories as they have been written since, 
and see in them no love that these men had for 
man or woman, but false friendship and evil lust, 
and the worthy and the righteous, bespatter their 


My Last Interview with King Monmouth 401 

names and belittle their memories. So be it. There 
was a woman who loved them, for all their faults, 
as they loved her (for all hers!), and who once 
knew them well, and hopes to know them better some 
day. 


/ 











THE TOWER OF LONDON 











CHAPTER XXIV 


THE TOWER OF LONDON 

We sang no more when the song was done; 

(Yet the echo rings in my heart to-day,) 

“Crowns will be lost, and crowns will be won, 

And crowns will be thrown awayl” 

Fame is to win, if high Heaven will, — 

Life is to lose, if black failure shames, — 

But Love dies never on Tower Hill, 

James ! 

{King Monmouth.) 

M. N. 

Not only did I have a dreadfully anxious and wretched 
journey to England, but I broke down altogether once 
I got there. I was practically without money, and 
my maid and I had to rough it to an almost unbear- 
able extent ; nobody made any plans for me nor 
supplied my wants, nor sent even a manservant to 
escort me over, we had to fend for ourselves, and 
it was a horrible business. Already suspicions were 
afoot as to Monmouth’s intentions, though he did 
not sail for England and his “rebellion” till the end 
of the following month after all, Argyle getting away 
to Scotland at the beginning; and it did not make 
things simpler for women passengers by the packets 
or by public coach, a weary business at best, back 
to St. Albans. As I say, it was not only inter- 
minable but trying, and I arrived at St. Stephen’s 
Farm only to collapse, and for two months I never 
left my bed. I was torn by anxiety, for I got but 
little news, the only spark of comfort lay in the fact 
that no instructions came from Monmouth for me 
to carry out — which anyhow I could not have done; 

405 


406 


My Two Kings 


later I found they had been sent, but were stopped 
ere they left Holland, it was suspected by the agents 
of the Prince of Orange, — but this made waiting in 
suspense no easier. 

Once Lord Bruce did visit me; he went out of 
waiting some time in May for a short while, and re- 
turned to see his father, then on his death-bed — he 
died in the following July — at their country place 
beyond Toddington (you remember the story of the 
stag-hunt and the deer swimming the great ponds?) 
and on his way he stopped and waited on me. Dear 
Bruce, he was no more the long-legged cheery boy of 
our old gay days, but a sensible, serious married man 
— prematurely serious, I think, since he as well as I 
was utterly heartbroken over Charles’s loss. 

It was a strange interview. He came up to my 
room and sat by my bed for over an hour, in his fine 
London clothes that stirred so many memories. Neither 
he nor I could speak when we first met, and I soon 
saw he longed for news of Monmouth and Henrietta, 
and yet would not ask me. We both tried to say a 
little, but I was ill, and fearful of speaking too 
freely of Monmouth, even to him (after all, he was 
King James’s gentleman) ! We began, and we both 
broke down, and when we were calmer, we went back 
to the subject of King Charles, and then there was 
no restraint, neither of our words nor our tears, we 
wept together quite frankly. We had both lost the 
best friend and master ever known, and we knew it, 
and it was good to say it; in this incarnation I 
have read Ailesbury’s Memoirs many times, and 
realise that, fifty years later, when all the rest of us 
were dead, he wrote exactly as he talked to me on the 
lovely May day of that most fateful year. His per- 
sonal love never failed for Monmouth and Henrietta, 
nor his friendship with me — in later life I saw him 
many times, but after the day when we both stood 


The Tower of London 


407 


together at the entrance of the great vault when 
they carried her coffin in, less than a year after, 
Thomas Bruce and I never spoke of her again in this 
world. 

I tried, I remember, to ask him of King James — 
there the door was courteously shut in my face. I 
saw and understood at once, and patted the laced 
sleeve of his fine coat. “Well, well!” I said,. “I have 
lain here long enough. Next month I trust I shall 
be on my feet again, and then I will come up to 
town.” He looked somewhat embarrassed, courtier as 
he was. 

“To Whitehall, Madame?” he said. “I fear — you 
see his present Majesty is much pressed for room. 

He has rearranged the apartments ” here for the 

first time during our interview I laughed, much to 
his surprise; then he understood and laughed too. I 
leant back on the pillows propping me, and drew the 
laces around my hair closer. 

“Ah, Bruce!” I said, “I do not think to trouble 
His Majesty, and as for my old rooms, did you fancy 
I should expect them swept and garnished, awaiting 
me all this time?” 

“Nay, Madame,” he smiled. “But — you understand. 
There has been a good deal of sweeping and garnishing 
at Whitehall, but lodgings do not stand empty. His 
Majesty’s priests ” 

“Why,” said I, “it will do my rooms good to have 
a holy man in them! Belike we were too worldly 
and frivolous there,” and I broke off, remembering 
who had frequented them so often, to laugh and jest, 
and be at ease, innocently, after all. “The town is 
wide, and I have still friends. If I come to wait on 
the King, will you obtain me an audience?” I said 
this half in joke, but with meaning. He stood up, 
towering in my low chamber, his good honest face 
troubled but determined. I leant back on my pillows 


408 My Two Kings 

again with one of my old wicked laughs, and waited 
for him to speak. 

“Madame,” he said once more, and stopped. 
“Madame, we are old friends. Let us play this game 
with our cards on the table. I serve the present 
King; I do my best to serve him honestly. You and 

he ” again he stopped, and I nodded without a 

smile now. 

“I and he? — yes, my lord, let that pass. We 
understand each other. If I come to Whitehall to 
pay my respects to His Majesty, you introduce and 
are responsible for me? If I come for any other 
reason, I apply elsewhere for admittance — that is it, 
is it not? Are there enough of my cards visible, my 
friend, or,” I shook the loose' arms of the little silken 
over-jacket covering my night-smock, “do I keep an 
ace or so up my sleeve?” 

He smiled a little twisted smile, sad, whimsical, 
yet full of understanding. “I can guess at your 
hidden cards, you could show me nothing fresh. 
But I am the King’s servant, yet, Madame, always 
yours !” 

I lay still after he had gone and thought over the 
words. He guessed; he knew. Who did not? If any 
one did not, it was that King he served ! And I — I had 
been my King’s servant, and my maid’s words came 
back to me the night we had our fatal news out of 
England: “But which King?” 


Madame Carey, you were not in London, nor any- 
where accessible, during those months of my illness. 
I cannot quite recall why, nor where you were, I only 
know that you had a chance denied to me, and took 
it: that you saw Monmouth alive, while I was too 
late. 

I cannot dwell upon the time that followed. My 


The Tower of London 


409 


dragging convalescence was proceeding, but my 
anxiety was increasing daily, for, from getting but 
little news, the moment was to come when all ceased, 
and, wild as were the rumours that shook St. Albans, 
nothing certain could be gathered. I did hear of 
Monmouth’s landing, and that he was doing well, 
his army augmented, the devotion of the West 
country reawakening; then I felt I could bear no 
more, and I must go to London. I wrote, guard- 
edly, to Mistress Katherine Crofts, at Whitehall, but 
received no reply. I then made up my mind to 
hire a coach and go straightway, intending to lodge 
in the village of Chelsea, where I knew of a house 
belonging to a servant of the late King, once also 
in Mrs. Gwyn’s service, to whom I could secretly go. 
So one of my men went into St. Albans to bespeak 
me a coach, and came back with a puzzled face, 
with the news that I could not have one, and he 
did not understand why not. This roused the 
suppressed but by no means tamed Stuart temper in 
me! I could have no coach? I would know the 
reason why! I found my servants collected in the 
little hall, my hind scratching his tousled head. 
“There — there is a stranger at the gate, Madame,” 
he stammered. “He came from the town with me; I 
was followed.” 

It is to be confessed I thought the fellow had been 
drinking, discreet, sober yokel as he usually was, and 
long in my employ. Had he talked too much, and 
so been shadowed by a spy? “A stranger?” I cried 
imperiously. “Send him to me.” They looked uneasy, 
whispered among themselves, finally my own woman 
came forward. 

“Madame, he wears no uniform, but . . .” 

This was enough for me. In the bright June sun- 
shine I stepped out of the hall door, I was down the 
path to the gate in a flash, despite my past weakness, 


410 


My Two Kings 


and out into the road. And before me stood a man 
whom I knew at a glance for a soldier despite his 
civilian gear. 

“Your ladyship’s pardon,” he said in answer to my 
demand, “What is thy business, fellow?” “Your lady- 
ship’s pardon, my business is the King’s.” 

“And the King’s orders?” I said, realising in one 
instant my situation. 

“Are, that if your ladyship is wise, you will remain 
quietly at home, in the unsettled state of the country 
at present.” 

“The King orders me that?” I asked, outwardly 
calm, inwardly cold with anger. 

“Nay, Madame, not altogether so; but he orders me 
to see you stay!” 

So I was a prisoner, with King James’s sentry set 
on guard over me. 

I gave a little laugh; I could not help it. “His 
Majesty shall be obeyed,” I said. “Do not fear that 
I shall give thee trouble. I will lie peacefully within 
till the country is settled,” and I went back with my 
head high — beaten. “Monmouth, my dear!” I said to 
myself, “you will have to come and take me out of 
this before I can go to your palace in my new blue 
gown to kiss your hand as Countess Stuart !” 

Somehow or other I lived through the next few 
weeks. I received no letters, and those I wrote I 
shrewdly suspected never reached their destination. 
I made up my mind to wait in patience, and if 
possible to hear no rumours when I could get no 
definite news. Easier said than done ! St. Albans 
was seething , and somehow my underlings daily 
obtained something or other in the way of intelli- 
gence — my back premises hummed, sotto voce, till 
I felt distracted. I had remained in the garden for 
a lifetime, it seemed, till one day I could bear it no 
longer. At least I must go to the little grey church 


The Tower of London 


411 


a stone’s throw from my gates, to kneel in prayer in 
my old place near the pillar on which to this day 
is scratched, “May the King come,” in Latin, by a 
prisoner of Cromwell’s. Surely I should be permitted 
that? and so without ado I went to the front gate and 
spoke to the sentry. 

“Is it forbidden me to go to church for half an 
hour?” I said, and smiled. “On parole if thou wilt, 
my man.” He was perfectly civil; he saluted. 

“If Madame permits, I go too,” and so it was done. 
I do not think I had ever felt quite what it was to 
be a prisoner before, till I walked down that country 
lane, with a guard a couple of steps behind me on 
the other side of the road, and so into the church 
beside the great cedar under which Henry VIII courted 
Anne Boleyn (who lies a few feet from Monmouth 
under the Altar of St. Peter ad Vincula), and to my 
prayers beside the old and rough-hewn pillar, my 
eyes on the motto: “Adveniat Rex!” and my gaoler, 
stiff as a ramrod, in the aisle next to me. “May the 
King come.” I think that was all my prayer. I can 
remember saying no more at all. 

And that day the King, my King Monmouth, came 
to London a prisoner too. 


It was not till the actual 15th of July I knew any- 
thing for certain, and then I knew for certain all hope 
was over. On that fatal morning my maid came to 
me and drew my curtains, and said: “Madame, if you 
look out of the window, you will see that you are 
free; the sentry has been removed.” My heart gave 
a great leap — free! then — but I looked at her face 
and my leaping heart sank — sank. “What is it?” I 
said in a whisper. She shook her head. 

“I cannot tell you. But he went a moment ago. 
And first of all he came to us women, and told us we 


412 


My Two Kings 


could come and go as we would, and that you, Ma- 
dame, could have your coach for London — and — 
he was a good fellow, the coach is to come in an 
hour. Do you want it still, Madame? What is there 
to go for? You would be too late — too late” — her 
stern features suddenly relaxed, and she buried her 
face in her apron — “too late to see his Grace — His 
Majesty” (in a choked whisper). “The execution is 
to be this morning at half-past ten of the clock on 
Tower Hill. . . . Are you still for the road, Madame? 
What can you do?” 

“Something,” I said. “Yes, I am for the road.” 
And when the coach came in an hour’s time I was 
ready for it. 

Of my journey to London that golden July morning 
there is nothing I will write. 

The twenty-two miles took over five hours to 
cover ; indeed it was nearer the sixth before my humble 
equipage rolled and rumbled over the cobble-stones 
of the London streets — streets filled with an aimless, 
awed crowd. My coachman, according to my orders, 
made his way with some difficulty to the entrance of 
Chiffinich’s lodgings, near the river, a quiet back 
way little frequented by the public; and though the 
coach was more than once questioned by sentries I 
boldly said I had important business with the Keeper 
of the King’s Cabinet, and they let me through. 
There was an air over everything as of tension just 
slackened, as of safety accomplished, a deed done; 
in fact, I was surprised to arrive at my destination 
with so much ease. I had been prepared for a far 
greater difficulty and was in the set, stony frame of 
mind in which, in my life then and my life now, I 
have got things done by unhesitatingly walking 
straight through everything and simply doing 
them. 

At the modest half-hidden door I was on the step, 


The Tower of London 


413 


my great black cloak about me, my hood well over 
my face, but the ribbons loosened, before it was opened, 
and I saw with relief a servant once well known to 
me, a confidential man of Chiffinch’s in old days. I 
simply asked to see his master, and was quite as simply 
denied. 

“Watkin!” I said, and then threw back my hood 
so that he could see my face. He started and bowed 
hurriedly. “Take this to your master and tell him 
Madame Stuart is without,” and into his hand I put 
a piece of paper on which I had written a line or 
two in the cypher Charles had given me. He did not 
even go through the form of asking me to wait while 
he went to make inquiries ; he bowed deeply again 
and bade me enter. “Come back in two hours,” I 
said in a firm clear voice to my coachman, and fol- 
lowed. We passed through passages dark even in this 
high summer at midday, and entered the familiar ante- 
room, the ante-room leading to that inner apartment 
with its enormous window overlooking the Thames, 
where half my life ago, it seemed, I had had my final 
interview with King Charles. “Madame, a seat,” said 
the man; then paused for a moment. “Oh, Madame!” 
He looked at me, and was gone to fetch William 
Chiffinch. 

I stood up. This was past bearing. To sit and 
wait in these very rooms — why, when last I passed 
that door in front of me, Charles had closed it behind 
me, and I, with my tears on my cheeks and his kiss 
on my mouth, his kind gay voice ringing in my 
ears — “My dear, dear cousin!” encouraging, consol- 
ing, laughing at my fears — had turned to Chiffinch 
with a sort of wild wonder and foreboding, shared, I 
knew, and all too well understood. “I cannot endure 
it,” I said aloud, and the private door from Chiffinch’s 
lodgings opened and he came in. The same dark, 
sharp face, the same lift of the eyebrows, the same 


My Two Kings 


414 

heavy black perriwig so like his master’s 1 — nay, not 
his master now, for this man, like Ailesbury, was King 
James’s servant. 

He came forward without a word, took my hand, 
bent very low, kissed it, and, without letting it go, 
led me into the inner room. In his left hand he 
held my paper. We looked at each other in silence. 
There was everything to say, and nothing. Chiffinch, 
thank the gods, was a man who never wanted ex- 
planations. Besides, I was not there to explain. I 
looked at him and he at me. I spread my hands 
swiftly out and apart as if sweeping away — what did 
I not sweep? and spoke at last. “Will,” I said, 
“I must see the King. I have a watch to keep this 
night, and I must have his permission. Take me to 
him.” 

I asked for nothing — I said I must have ! He 
knew me, he knew what I meant, he knew the King, 
aye, he and I knew each other so well, and the 
King — the Kings we had served, and we needed 
telling nothing, did we? Besides, I had but one 
point to gain, and one thing more to do, and then, 
I would trouble J ames II and his servants no 
more. 

“His Majesty dines, but he will be at liberty” — 
he glanced at the clock — “in a few minutes. He 
will be in his closet. I will take you there.” No 
difficulties, no objections; James the inaccessible was 
to have me shown straight in to his most private 
sanctum without a word! The barriers were down, 
the sentries were removed, he was safe once more, the 
only King in England since ten o’clock that morn- 
ing. . . . Chiffinch stood by the empty grate and I 
by the wide window. 

On the floor between us, had I known it, Mon- 

i Vide the Gorhambury portrait of Chiffinch. 


The Tower of London 415 

mouth had knelt before James II at their last awful 
meeting. I knew it later, not then. 

But it was not Will Chiffinch who was present as 
a living man in that room — he was a ghost beside 
Charles and his son, a reality, but a shadow in the 
presence of dead men far more alive, far more real 
to me. 

A bell sounded. 

Chiffinch never said another word; he came across 
the room and took my hand again, and led me 
through both the doors into the gallery, quietly, 
firmly, exactly (it is hard to describe) as I wanted 
him to do; and that, too, he understood. We paused 
before another familiar door, again, I was in an 
ante-room not empty this time, but tenanted by a 
page or so, and a couple of magnificent courtiers, 
one of whom was Lord Sunderland and the other 
Lorry Hyde, King James’s brother-in-law, laughing 
together freely. They turned on seeing Chiffinch 
enter, and with him a woman! Chiffinch closed the 
outer door with perfect unconcern, handed me to a 
seat which I took without a word or sign, moved to 
the inner door, spoke to the page beside it, scratched 
with his private key, entered, and was shut in with 
his King. A familiar voice floated out as the door 
opened to admit the Keeper of the King’s Closet and 
closed upon him ; I sat by the table, my hood 
shading my face, my hands quiet in my lap, taking 
no more notice of the splendour of Sunderland or 
the fastidious modishness of the new Lord Rochester 
than if they had been the boy at the door. There was 
a pause; then his lordship, with well-bred insolence, 
said something just below his breath to his brother 
earl — Sunderland, who had been in correspondence 
with Monmouth, and whom Monmouth had promised 
should be his Prime Minister! — Lorry Hyde, Claren- 
don’s second son, his secret faith pinned to the sue- 


416 


My Two Kings 


cession of his nieces, the Lady Mary and the Lady 
Anne — and I, in my deep mourning and enveloping 
hood, symbol of defeat and heartbreak, come to sue 
for one more favour. 

The door opened, and out came — Bentinck! 

For the first time that day my composure nearly 
failed me, the shock — though I might have expected 
to meet him; might have been almost certain of it, 
had I known, as I know now, the history of that last 
week — the shock was like a blow in the face. He too 
was laughing, more animated than I had ever seen 
him, with an appearance of immense relief in his whole 
atmosphere, all accounted for when I knew everything 
later. He advanced and Sunderland turned, with up- 
lifted brows, to him as he came. 

And I rose from where I sat, I put up a hand to 
the fastening of my cloak, threw back my hood, let 
the cloak itself fall from my shoulders, and fronted 
him. Sunderland, never to be surprised, bowed low, 
Rochester checked one of his usual oaths, Bentinck, 
stolid Dutchman trained in William’s school as he was, 
turned scarlet all over his fair face, and with an ob- 
vious effort pulled himself together and took another 
step towards me, his lips parting to speak. 

And I advanced too ; I looked all three men straight 
in the eyes, each one separately, ending with Bentinck, 
and I walked through the group they made as if they 
had not been there, to meet Chiffinch at the open door 
of the King’s cabinet. 

A grey-haired woman in shabby black, friend of 
the traitor bastard now lying dead in the Tower, 
emblem of Stuart failure — yes ! But they knew 
that I knew much, and they did not know how 
much, and they did not laugh as I went through 
them and in to the King as if I had been a queen. 
There is little that is laughable to read of just now 
in these pages, but I have laughed since! — and they 


The Tower of London 


417 


did not laugh then. I met Chiffinch’s eyes as squarely, 
but with a difference, as he ushered me in, and the 
door was shut upon me. 

James II was sitting at a great table placed side- 
ways in the middle of the room, writing. 

Opposite, between the windows, hung a mirror 
of tortoise-shell inlaid with gold, and, standing 
motionless by the door, waiting till the King should 
look up, I saw my reflection, my drawn, set face, 
yet with a colour in my cheeks and shining eyes, my 
white hair, plainly dressed, rolled back from my 
forehead uncurled and unadorned, my black gown 
simple to severity, my gloveless hands, hanging at 
my sides but with the fingers tightly clenched. So 
I stood. 

He looked up, laid down his pen and made a 
movement to me to come forward. Charles would 
have been on his feet with a hand outstretched to 
be kissed in the fascinating Stuart way, but this 
King was not Charles. And I, what was I? The 
rebel — the known rebel who had been in league with 
the dead Pretender? If that was supposed to be 
my role I did not play it! I went forward, looked 
straight at the King as I had done at his courtiers 
in the ante-room, dropped my eyes, curtsied very 
deeply and very stiffly, rose again, and waited, still 
without a word. 

“Well, Madame,” said the harsh voice, that yet had 
a lingering note of triumph in its querulousness, “what 
is your business?” 

“A favour, Your Majesty,” I replied, and was silent 
again. 

“A favour? you ask a favour — my pardon, I sup- 
pose? Seeing that you can do no further harm, it is 
my clemency that grants it. You are free.” 

“Sire,” I replied, “I have been free since this 
morning.” 


418 


My Two Kings 


Silence. 

“You freed me then, Sire, when you removed your 
guard from my gates. But I have this to ask, freedom 
to go to a prison for to-night, and after that, Your 
Majesty, leave to go — and to return no more to trouble 
you and yours.” 

“You are pleased to speak in riddles” — the 
haughty lip curled, as I had seen William’s do. Oh ! 
they were alike, those two, uncle and nephew ; James 
was not lucky in his nephews, as all History knows 
now. 

“I think not, Sire. I want Your Majesty’s per- 
mission to keep vigil by the dead to-night. Give me 
an order that I may watch the body of the Duke 
of Monmouth till daylight, and that Mr. Kneller may 
have access to-morrow after I have gone.” 

He swung round in his chair and seemed about 
to refuse. “Listen,” I said. “In days to come, 
Sire, you may thank me for this. Let a woman 
who knew the dead well, and yet a woman who was 
not one of his women” (and here I smiled, and 
James smiled — two such utterly different smiles, and 
yet the only ones in the whole interview) “be able 
to bear witness that it was he. Let me commission 
Mr. Kneller to paint him lying there; another proof, 
Your Majesty.” 

He sat silent, puzzled. The slow mind, tenacious 
when once it grasped a fact, pondered these reasons, 
endeavoured, suspicious as ever, to find some hidden 
meaning in my wishes, warily waited, while the fine 
beautiful Stuart hand twisted the pen, laid it down, 
picked it up again. With another man I should then 
have struck another note, have touched, however 
slightly on all I had lost, and my powerlessness for 
future harm, have enlarged upon kingly prerogative, 
pity, perhaps; not with James! I remained perfectly 
still, and waited too. 


The Tower of London 


419 


He looked sharply at me and drew a piece of paper 
towards him, wrote swiftly in that large bold hand 
of his a few words, signed them, sanded them, made 
to push the paper across the table, but I never stirred. 
Then for the first time he rose, came towards me 
where I stood, held it out, and I took it. To this 
day I do not know if, for a moment the Royal hand 
was not outstretched for my kiss, since I was bowed 
to the floor in the same deep curtsey with which I 
had greeted him, and, as I rose, he was sounding a 
small bell on the table, and the door behind me opened 
to admit Chiffinch. 

“Take this lady” — “this lady,” of me, to Chiffinch! 
as if I had been a stranger 1 — “take this lady and see 
that she is conducted to the Tower and spends the 
night with James Scott’s body.” If he thought to 
read anything in my face, it was a blank to him. 

There was a little pause; Chiffinch bowed without a 
word. 

“Thank you, Sire,” I said very low, “I am grate- 
ful to Your Majesty, you have been patient with my 
petition.” 

So he had; after all, so he had! I could say that 
truly, but I would have said it as a lie if need had 
been. He had won, he had beaten us who loved 
Monmouth to the dust, he was neither generous nor 
merciful, but he might have been entirely ungenerous 
and unmerciful to me, and he was not. He was a 
Stuart in his way — another side of me echoed the 
thoughts, the words, the actions of James II; he 
had had a hard life and bitter provocation, and we 
had laughed, all three of us, in the past, when 
he had gone seriously about the nation’s business. 
He had made Britain a Navy, he established for 

i It is almost impossible to realise that J ames II was also 
Madame Stuart’s cousin! 


420 


My Two Kings 


ever the Church of England — we must thank him 
for that! albeit he did it backhandedly — he died 
a saint, having sacrificed his three crowns to his 
beliefs, and he suffered worse than Charles, or Mon- 
mouth, or Henrietta, or I ! Peace to his ashes, 
wherever they may be. Who am I to judge King 
James? 

I backed out of the presence. The ante-room was 
empty. 


There were folk in the gallery outside, as the Keeper 
of the King’s Closet and I passed out; Whitehall was 
stirring all that wild day, and there were many 
anxious to pay court to James, as there were to Anna 
Monmouth, waited upon by her friends to condole and 
congratulate in a breath, to whom “she modestly re- 
plied that she had bought that commendation dear.” 
Heaven knows, it was the day of reckoning for most 
of us! 

The crowd stood back as Chiffinch led me out once 
more, and looked as curiously at me as the three 
lords had done. What construction was put on my 
appearance there in deep mourning, obviously sup- 
ported by Chiffinch, as obviously new from the 
King and carrying a Royal order of some sort, I 
cared not a snap of the fingers. The loser of the 
game has not lost his soul, and I, if ruined, if de- 
feated, if utterly bereaved, left Whitehall for the last 
time carrying a high head, passed through those 
familiar passages thronged with the usual gathering, 
worn, shabby, with loosened hair and tear-stained 
cheeks, as steadily, aye, as insolently, as I had ever 
passed through a mob in my gayest days in silks and 
laces and jewels — and in my heart the wish that I 
were walking to Tower Hill as one had walked only 
that morning. 


The Tower of London 


421 


Mr. Chiffinch was among those men whose names 
History' has branded with epithets unsuited to a 
less free-spoken age. To me he remains the old 
friend who helped me through that last dreadful 
day of my public life, for he took me straight, not 
to my coach, not to wait in his ante-room, but direct 
to his own private lodging. He put me into a big 
chair without a word, he called a servant, and before 
I knew what was happening a tray was brought 
with food and wine on it. “Since you have not 
dined, Madame, you must eat.” No, I had not 
dined, I had forgotten! Had I breakfasted? it 
was too far back to remember. I shook my head, 
but he poured out a brimming glass. “Drink,” he 
said quietly and commandingly, and I obeyed. 
Then I found I could eat ; then he left me and 
sent a maid to me. I was to rest — no one would 
disturb me ; the day-bed was heaped with soft 
cushions, warm water dashed with essence was 
forthcoming, my dusty dress brushed, my hair 
shaken out and swiftly re-dressed, and I meekly 
obeyed, awaking later from a dreamless slumber of 
several hours to find night fallen and Chiffinch in the 
doorway. 

“I am excused from duty for the remainder of 
the day,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. “My 
barge is at the Privy Steps. Your coach will go to 
my stable for the night, and your man hath been 
told ; he will attend at the Tower gates at day- 
break to convey you home. Mr. Kneller I have 
communicated with by messenger; he will come pre- 
pared to the Tower before you leave. He understands 
what will be required and will have all materials with 
him. Everything is arranged ; Madame, your cloak” — 
he put it round me and drew the hood over my 
hair. Not till months afterwards did I wonder how, 
since James and I were alone in his cabinet, Will 


422 My Two Kings 

Chiffinch had learnt all my wishes without any ex- 
planation ! 

To have a man to look after one again — to have 
all settled and arranged — to find that he, without a 
word, was going to spend his spare time in conveying 
me by the river to my destination, saving me the long, 
shaking journey in my hired vehicle, and possible 
difficulties among the city crowds, and on my arrival! 
I put my hand in his. “Oh, Will,” I said. “How 

like ” and then for the first time my voice 

shook. He smiled that strange smile which left 
his black eyes solemn and infinitely sad. Once 
more I passed out, and found myself on the 
flight of open stone stairs where the evening air 
blew sweet off the great river, and we went aboard 
the small discreet barge, darkly painted and de- 
corated, swift, adequate, unnoticeable ; so like its 
owner. 

From those stairs Monmouth had been taken to the 
Traitors’ Gate. I thank Heaven, now, that though 
I knew all these things later, I did not know them at 
the time. 

What I felt on entering the Tower can be said in 
one word — nothing. I was quite numb. There are 
times even now when I turn to stone, to outward 
view, and, as well, right to my heart. I have a 
dim recollection of our silent walk through the ways 
of that grim fortress to the entrance of the Bell 
Tower. I seem to recall swinging lanterns, and the 
red and gold and black of the Yeomen of the Guard’s 
uniforms, an ancient door, more dark passages, 
stairs of rough stone, the entrance to 'a cell, the cell 
itself, a room bare of all things save a dull oil lamp 
hanging from the ceiling, that burned with a lurid 
smoky glare above a low couch in the centre of the 
floor, covered with a black velvet pall that swept the 
ground, but which was turned back to reveal a white 


The Tower of London 423 

pillow, and on the pillow, the dark head of one asleep 
there. 

From the time we set forth from the Privy Stairs, 
Chiffinch never said one word to me, nor I to him. 

The books will tell you that tact was this man’s 
trade; I can only say I have seen trades worse fol- 
lowed. The silence between us was broken only by 
his pausing, while I entered the room, to say some- 
what to the two guards outside, who let us pass in 
a moment at the sight of His Majesty’s permit; I 
heard the light crackle of the paper in my escort’s 
hand. Then that business over, Chiffinch stood in- 
side the door while I walked forward alone in the hot 
gloom. 

There are times when acting becomes second 
nature. I had no part to play before William Chiffinch, 
but in all things there is, or should be, a decency, 
and he, whatever he thought or felt, was in his 
official position under King James. I, a humble 
petitioner whose last prayer had been granted, and 
the dead body before us that of a man who had 
paid the extreme penalty for High Treason. Be- 
sides, there was this — Chiffinch, who would see me no 
more, should at least remember me as a lady who 
had once been of his beloved King Charles’s Court, 
who had faced his successor without flinching, and had 
had her way, and who now was come to watch out 
the night of her own free will, beside the bier of his 
enemy. 

And tears, and lamentations, and even shudder- 
ing horror? Why, I did not want to cry or lament! 
We were beaten, we were down and done, he was 
dead; but why tears, and above all, why horror? 
Afraid of death? Death would be a friend to me, 
would he but come. Afraid of my James? Nay, I 
had felt no fear of that other James; and since all 
my heart was full only of love, and envy, and thank- 


424 


My Two Kings 


fulness that there was no more to endure, and that 
here was peace and quiet (for him I had never seen 
still, never known quiet!) what was there to do or 
to say? I stood beside the bier and looked down at 
him. 

Oh, my most beautiful! Of all the lovely memories 
I had (and have) of you in your restless, splendid, 
gallant life, your light-hearted boyhood, your brave 
and glorious manhood, despite your follies and your 
sins, in your love at last, and always, always your 
friendship for me — of all those fair visions this one 
sets the finish and the crown upon my remembrances, 
this, of your exquisite dead face. 

And as I stood still and gazed, Chiffinch came 
behind me and turned up the wick of the low lamp 
till the chamber was full of a glowing golden light. 
He never glanced at the bed; he came to my side, 
he suddenly dropped on one knee, took my shabby 
black skirts in his hand, kissed my gown, rose, and 
went without a word and the door was shut upon 
him. 

“Everybody goes,” I said to myself. “ Everybody 
goes , and nobody says good-bye .” 

This still figure had run so gaily from me, laughing 
over a shoulder, crying, “Await me ! I must take leave 
of you ; I cannot let you go like this !” 

My dear heart, I had come to take leave of you , 
how else could I let you go? 

I covered my head with my black draperies; I 
sat down at the foot of the bier on a low wooden 
stool; I put my elbow on my knee and rested my chin 
in my hand, and drew the all-enveloping folds of my 
thin, clinging mantle entirely over me from head to 
foot, and then let every muscle relax, slowly, slowly; 
and with it, all seemed to let go too, and the glimmering 
dusk swam into oblivion — I was out of it all for a 
little while. 


The Tower of London 


425 


Through that long night feet came and went — a 
woman of the people, a warder’s daughter, I think, 
who wept a moment and was fetched away by the 
sentry, leaving a white rose on the black velvet ; 
a clergyman once, I fancy; two officials talking in 
low tones ; again, I surmise, a great lord whose step 
and voice I thought I knew, but I never stirred; and 
then, a rustle of silken skirts, and a woman’s figure 
kneeling by the pillow, a black veil falling back from 
silvery -blonde hair — Eleanor Needham. But we 
never spoke, and to this day she does not know (I 
heard that afterwards) that mine was the shrouded 
watching figure at her dead lover’s feet. I thought 
of her who had loved him and lost him, and of all 
the others but the one of whom I dared not then 
think, in the life at Whitehall through which his bright 
young presence had woven so golden a thread, of my- 
self, who had loved him always, and had never had him 
to lose. 


And now he was asleep, and none of us would ever 
wake him again. 


The dawn came, blue and violet through the warm 
glow of the lamp. The room was empty then. I rose, 
and as the first shaft of July sun struck through the 
barred windows, extinguished the light, put aside my 
cloak, went back to the bier, and bent over King Mon- 
mouth. I pressed my lips to the heavy lids half hiding 
the dark eyes — once — twice. 

“Sleep!” I said. “Never mind the dawn. You have 
done with our day.” 

And then came a knock at the door. “Mr. Kneller 
is without awaiting your orders, Madame.” 

“Let Mr. Kneller come in,” I said. The little 


426 


My Two Kings 


clever self-important foreigner, once Monmouth’s 
protege, friend and painter of us all (I had sat to him 
twice or thrice myself), was beside me, very solemn, 
very subdued, followed by a servant carrying painting 
materials. 

“Sir,” I said, “will you do this for me? Make 
me a study of his Grace’s head as he lies there — 
just that. You will have all the forenoon, I 
believe. Send it when finished to my house at St. 
Stephen’s.” 

“Madame, it shall be done. May I ask — it is, per- 
chance, a commission from . . . my lady Henrietta?” 

“Man!” I said, sharply, in a tense whisper, “she 
does not know — anything,” and I turned aside and 
stood looking out into the brilliant morning, quivering 
from head to foot, tearless. 

“Madame Stuart, forgive me,” said the painter 
in his broken English. “I should have known 
better. All yesterday I waited for a word from 
the Duchess — none came ! This order is yours, 
then?” 

“Aye, it’s mine,” I cried softly, feeling my lip curl 
as King James’s had done. “It’s mine! Not for the 
Duchess of Monmouth, not for a reminder to those 
who would rule England that they must prove their 
title first!” I cannot tell why I spoke thus. I only 
know that in after years Sir Godfrey Kneller, staunch 
upholder of the legitimacy of James II’s last son, that 
king without a crown or a throne all his long weary 
life, remembered what I had said and asked me what 
made me say it then. 

“Forgive me,” I added. “Now I go, sir. Fare- 
well. You will paint me a masterpiece, I can be 
sure.” 

“And fare you well, Madame,” he replied with a 
low bow. “Later I trust we may meet again at 
Court; there will be many portraits ” he puffed 


The Tower of London 427 

out his chest and strutted to the door to open it for 
me. 

“Doubtless,” I replied, “there will be many por- 
traits. But not mine, sir; and if we meet again, it 
will not be in Whitehall.” 

The little man stood disconcerted at the door, 
the latch in his hand. His somewhat nervous 
and awed servant paused in his laying out of 
canvas, palette, and brushes. I turned to the 
dead. 

No farewell to take there; nothing more left to 
say. Only a parting salute — my lowest of all low 
curtseys, down, down, on the rough stone floor with 
just the ghost of a smile on my lips at the astonish- 
ment I could feel (but not see) on the faces of the two 
men behind me. 

“Your Majesty's servant /” I said; and so I left him 
for the last time. 


At the entrance of the Bell Tower one of the 
Yeomen, evidently under orders to await me, took 
me through the flashing blue morning across the 
open square. Once I looked towards the low brown 
chapel where there was to be a funeral that after- 
noon, and then I followed my guide. At the portals 
my hireling was faithfully awaiting me. I was past 
all surprise by then; it seemed somehow quite natural 
that you, Madame Carey, whose whereabouts I did 
not know, with whom I had been unable to get in 
touch all the time King James’s sentries were at my 
doors, should be seated within, holding the door half 
opened ready for me, the anxiety on your face sharp 
in the brilliant light. I believe I remembered to 
give a direction, unnecessary as it turned out, to the 
coachman, I hope I paused to thank the Yeoman, I 
am very certain I said no greeting to you! I stepped 


428 


My Two Kings 


into the coach and into your arms, and as we rolled 
under the lowering arch, I have just a remembrance 
of blue sky and blue ripples reflecting it on a gay 
river. Then all was dark at once — Nature is some- 
times kind. 











KNOWLEDGE 





































CHAPTER XXV 


KNOWLEDGE 


All the Latin I 


construe is “Amo — I love!” 

Browning. 


Amo. 


Monmouth’s Motto. 


You took me back to St. Stephen’s without a word 
of explanation, invaluable, like Chiflinch, in those 
dread times when nothing matters but the Thing 
that Is; you stayed with me there for a week or 
more till I pulled myself fiercely, determinedly, 
together again. At first, lying in my curtained bed 
in the dark, I hoped I might die — in fact, I said “I 
will die ” — and then over and over again my thoughts 
went back to Henrietta and I wondered if there 

were not a little more for me to do for Monmouth 

with her. After my first connected talk with you I 
was sure of it. You were perfectly admirable and 
adequate, my servants were always devoted to you. 
I slept “like drowned weed” after that long journey 
home, part of which I passed in fortunate insensi- 
bility; and in the waning of the ensuing Saturday 

you came and sat by my bedside, and let in the clear 
rose and silver light of a Hertfordshire summer 
evening. 

“Open the curtains that I may once more see 
day,” I murmured, quoting one of Charles’s last 
sentences, and then I looked at you, sitting in the 
tall-backed wand-seated chair, that had stood at my 
bedside at Whitehall and which my visitors so often 
used. 


431 


432 


My Two Kings 


“We used to live in one another’s bedrooms , 1 I 
sometimes think ! I remember how frequently my 
friends visited me when I was ill. There was one 
afternoon, when Charles sat there for two hours at 
a stretch, and James broke all laws of etiquette by 
perching himself at the foot of my bed, where he kicked 
the bed-rail till he had to be stopped, and entangled 
his sword in my embroidered quilt when he got up 
to go !” 

Why I should have thought of that foolish little 
incident, and have spoken of it then, I cannot say; 
you took it all as a matter of course, and went on 
with your embroidery quite simply. I lay still after 
that and looked at you in your beautiful black corded 
silk dress, with a plain deep berthe of Venetian point 
in the French fashion, veiled with black and your hair, 
turned up from your forehead (like Anna Monmouth’s 
in the portrait with her sons) enframed with a fine 
transparent black veil, the edges of which stood out 
slightly all round, the ends falling nearly to the hem 
of your skirts. 

“Do you remember Charles once told us how well 
your nut-brown hair and my grey looked with 
black?” I said suddenly; “and he added that he 
must kill the Duke of York for the sake of being able 
to see us both in Court mourning! ‘What will be 
the use of your looking your best when I’m dead and 
not there to see you?’ he asked us. (What is the 
use, Sophia?) When the Duke of York dies, will 
you put on orange?” I inquired, with a certain grim 
viciousness. 

You laid down your work and looked at me. “ Before 
then ,” you said. 

That came true enough. You were the wife of a 

1 Any lady, virtuous or not, received calls from gentlemen in 
bed; the history of the period is full of such incidents. 


Knowledge 


433 


man who helped carry on the business of the country 
for Mary Stuart’s sake, when King James left the 
Government in confusion, and the Army disbanded, 
and William dragged England somehow out of the 
pit she had digged for herself ; but I never wore 
colours again — not orange for King William, since 
my blue for King Monmouth was never worn either; 
and by the time James was off the throne and Wil- 
liam and his wife on it, I was out of the way of all 
affairs, stranded in my little backwater for good. 
Never again were sentries posted at the gates of a 
woman who had been dangerous because she knew too 
much ! 

I turned on my pillows and looked out of the win- 
dow. “Is there any news out of Holland?” I said 
abruptly. 

“I have heard of none,” you answered, “and I had 
several letters this morning. No, there are none for 
you. Mr. Chiffinch sent a messenger down yesterday 
to ask how you did — the town is quiet, Judge Jeffreys 
goes west.” We gazed at each other a moment and you 
went on. “Mr. Chiffinch — I held back his messenger — 
I wrote to him. I asked him to let us have news of 
Lady Wentworth, I used the figure in your cypher; 
was I wrong?” 

“Of course you were right, but I had hoped for 
news ere this,” I returned, restlessly moving in my 
bed. “My lord Bruce — I was glad he was not in 
waiting when I saw his Highness, though I thought he 
would have written.” 

“He is Lord Ailesbury now,” you replied. “His 
father has just died, and at the same time his young 
son, and he is in great trouble. He was excused from 
his term of waiting; that is why you did not see him. 
I did.” 

“You?” I said. 

“Yes. I was in London. Are you strong enough 


434 


My Two Kings 


to hear my story now, or shall we wait? There is 
no haste.” You picked up your frame again and filled 
a needle with silk. 

“Tell me,” I answered. “I can bear anything. 
You were in the town, then, when I was a prisoner 
here?” 

“For three days,” you said. “I went up on pur- 
pose, as soon as I heard of — of Sedgemoor fight. 
I tried to see the King and he denied himself to me. 
Then I would have made a further attempt, but 
Lord Bruce came to our lodgings and told both my 
husband and me that all was of no avail. I do not 
suppose King J ames would have listened to me,” 
you added thoughtfully, “but I was not going to 
let his Grace die without saying one word. Anyhow, 
it had to remain unsaid. But dear kind Bruce, who 
only paused at our house to bring me the message 
that it was a hopeless attempt, and worse than hope- 
less, for me to petition His Majesty, before he hurried 
back to Ailesbury and his dying father, gave me one 
piece of news. ‘If you wish it, Madame Carey,’ 
he said, ‘I can tell you this. The King has given 
permission for the Duke to have admitted to him 
any who may press for it; any for whom he may 
send. I can tell you this, too, though I have not 
seen him — I cannot — I beheld him at Whitehall Steps 

being brought to the Tower ,’ and here he had 

to wait for a while before he could go on. ‘I can 
tell you this : his Grace has been informed that Madame 
Stuart cannot leave St. Stephen’s’ ” ; I made a swift 
movement, and you added : “ ‘because the King has 
set a guard on her house. But you could gain access 
to the Duke, I think, Madame. He is to die on Wednes- 
day’ — this happened late on the Monday evening — ‘I 
believe it could be done if you intended it.’ I said I 
would go.” 

As you talked, in a calm matter-of-fact voice, you 


Knowledge 435 

went on with your work. I made a little sign for you 
to continue. 

“My husband raised no objections. The next 
morning he himself went down to the Tower. He was 
told that my name had been sent up to the Duke of 
Monmouth, and that he begged that I w T ould come 
that night about eight. He had seen Queen Catherine” 
(I drew a long sobbing breath as you said that), 
“but privily ; it must not be published. He had 
also seen Lord Annandale, and he hoped to see Lord 
Dover, but he is not in town. ‘Therefore, at eight 
o’clock, Madame Carey will be expected,’ was the mes- 
sage my husband brought back. So I went, my dear, 
for you.” 

“For me?” I said. “I might have known! But 
I knew nothing: only that the Duke of York would 
never let me see him alive.” 

“The Duke of York?” you asked, looking steadily 
at me. “But you must face it; there is no Duke of 
York now.” 

“There was no Duke of Monmouth when you went 
to the Tower,” I retorted with a bitter little laugh. 
“You went to see James Scott, as I did — after. And 
there is no King James now — never for me. But call 
him so if you will.” 

That was the only cruel word I said to you, I 
think, but I was hurt almost to death, and, after all, 
you understood everything and minded nothing of 
what I said or did then. And four years after I re- 
minded you, when William was on the throne, and asked 
you whether or no there were a King James, not 
bitterly, not unkindly, for there was no King at all 
for me after Monmouth died, neither James who killed 
him, nor William, who drove James into exile, nor 
James’s son, whom the world dubbed a bastard as he 
had dubbed his brother’s son James! That too you 
knew, and made allowance for. 


436 


My Two Kings 


Then I laughed and said, “I am quibbling; I have 
spoken with the Stuart who now wears the English 
crown, I have paid him due reverence, I have called 
him ‘Your Majesty.’ Words, forms, ceremonies, let 
them go. I am done with them — and so is King Mon- 
mouth. Tell me of him, Sophia.” 

“There is not much to tell,” you said; the light 
sank slowly, gleaming translucent from the northwest 
like amber strewn with coral clouds across the sky 
above the town; and you laid down your embroidery. 
“I knew not how I should find him — they told many 
dreadful tales — I was prepared. . . .” 

“Aye,” I said, “prepared for what you did not find ! 
How like James. And ?” 

“And he was calm and perfectly composed, nay, 
he was even gay. He laughed a little, quite happily, 
as I was shown in. ‘My lady, my dear lady,’ he said, 
and kissed both my hands and held them, and drew 
me down to a seat by a table, sitting down him- 
self, keeping hold of my hands still. ‘Ah,’ he 
said, ‘so I have friends yet. You come from my 
cousin ?’ 

“ ‘Your Majesty,’ I replied,” (here I turned my 
face a little away from the sunset with a fleeting 
smile), “‘Your Majesty, your cousin does not know 
that I come. I could not meet her ; we are kept apart, 
and she is under lock and key at her house, but what 
does that matter? We understand each other — yes, I 
am come from her.’ 

“ ‘Under lock and key,’ he echoed. ‘Like me, 
Madame. Ah, she and I understand each other too. 
We have always been friends, have we not, Mistress 
Carey? You and she, and she and I; and now she 
is going to lose one of her friends, but she will keep 
the other, you will never fail her ! You are not a Royal 
Stuart. We fail our friends, I think, sometimes; but 
most of all we fail ourselves.’ 


Knowledge 


437 


“Here I cried; I did not mean to,” you told me, 
“but I could not help it, and he let one hand go, 
but held the other in both of his. ‘There, there,’ he 
said to me, as if he were speaking to a child. ‘You 
weep, Her Majesty Queen Catherine wept — there is 
nothing to weep for. I have been mad and am sane 
again. Do you know why? I have been mad — 
mad with the thought of the woman I love, of my 
child that she was to bear. Now I know that for 
love of me she kept me in ignorance — Madame, there 
is to be no child. And she will come after me soon ; 
it will only be a little separation after all,’ and he 
smiled at me again. ‘Why, now I can die, can I 
not? For think, Madame, think! Had I won, had 
I seated myself on my uncle’s throne, there should 
I have sat, alone, while she went away, died, and 
left me, and now . . . ! So you see there is no 
need for tears. How do I know this? Can you and 
my cousin keep a secret, Madame? I endanger no 
more thrones !’ and again he smiled. ‘M. Bentiiick 
was here but an hour agone. He had a good deal 
to say. He knew I had a good deal to say if I cared 
to say it. I was wild for life — wild — and he knew 
it. But he brought me a cypher letter from the 
Princess of Orange. She has seen my love, she will 
go to her and tell her . . . after to-morrow. Never 
was a kinder letter written, Madame; it has changed 
everything for me — everything, and M. Bentinck 
could not understand why ! But you — you know, 
and the Lady Mary knew, and so she wrote as she 
did, privately; not even the Prince was aware that 
she had written. And now I know all. Do you 
remember what my motto is? “Amo — I love,” 
that is the extent of my Latin. I had a little more 
once, had I not? “Jacobus dux Monumet fidei et 
libertates defensor” — now Faith and Liberty must 
look to the present King to defend them, the Re- 


438 


My Two Kings 


formed Faith, my lady, the liberties of the English 
people!’ — and here, I admit,” you said, “this was so 
like the old Monmouth that it was impossible not to 
laugh !” 

“I know, I know,” I replied, nodding. 

“ ‘The Princess told me the truth. Henrietta is 
dying, Henrietta my dearing , 51 he lingered over the 
caressing phrase. ‘Her Highness has known it long, 
and I remember how my cousin Charlotte looked at 
me when we parted in Holland. I think she guessed 
then — and my eyes were holden. Now bid me a 
brave good-bye, remembering I go gladly, and take 
Charlotte this from me, telling her all I have told 
you, asking of her one last favour, that if my Lady 
Wentworth lives to return here, she will see her and 
speed her on her way to me. For I know now that 
nothing counts but love! I lose England, I lose life, 
but I have love for all eternity. I have learnt that 
late, but not too late, Madame Carey. The gods be 
kinder to you, Mistress, than they usually are to 
those who are kind to the Stuarts,’ and he put 
a little packet into my hand and closed my 
fingers over it, and then kissed my shut fingers. 
‘So I seal my despatch !’ he smiled, and I came 
away.” 

“Where is it?” I whispered, sitting up in bed. 
The last rays of the dying glory without made a re- 
flected light in the room. You took from your dress 
a small flat packet folded in paper. I opened it, and 
out upon the white sheet fell two curls, one silky-fine, 
deep brown with a hint of gold and auburn in the 
waves ; and, another, dense black, wiry, shot with many 
threads of white. 

“ ‘Tell her,’ he said to me,” I heard your voice 
saying, ‘it’s always unlucky to keep hair; and so, 

1 Monmouth spells it thus in his pocket-book. 


Knowledge 439 

it seems, it is to keep faith. But she’s a Stuart too, 
and she knows.’ ” 

Why yes, I suppose I know! Old Bacon of Veru- 
lam sat at Gorhambury and wrote, “Knowledge is 
power.” 

“Knowledge is love,” I write at St. Stephen’s by 
St. Albans! 

















FROM ST. STEPHEN’S TO ST. ALBANS 





CHAPTER XXVI 

from st. Stephen’s to st. albans 

Mironton, Mironton, Mirontaine! 

There remained now but one thing for me to do, to 
get back my strength and again wait. If Henrietta 
should return to England, I must be ready for her — 
a sacred order. How to get news of her? — that was 
my next trouble. Ordinary letters were useless. 
William of Orange controlled the packet service and, 
I believed, the mails. I had refused Bentinck re- 
cognition in King James’s ante-chamber; no hope 
from the Dutch Court, therefore ! And anyhow, I 
knew what the Dutch Court was set on — I had long 
known it; Charles had known it years before he died; 
though Mary of Orange had risked all to write in 
secret to Bentinck that Monmouth might die gladly. 
(How like a woman to understand, and to risk so 
much for Monmouth while yet wholeheartedly 
William’s ! How like Bentinck to fail to see her 
point ! How — but this train of thought took me no 
farther.) There was no possibility of writing to 
Philadelphia for news of her daughter in cypher; she 
would not understand it, I believed. Was Henrietta 
herself in a fit state to write to, even if I could 
get a letter through? Then, as I pondered, came a 
rumour — old Lady Wentworth was returning to Eng- 
land, to Toddington, alone; had returned even. She 
had left her daughter, still very ill, with her sister 
443 


444 


My Two Kings 


Aletta Quirinson, and Henrietta was to follow later; 
for the present she and her mother were best apart — 
so ran the reports in St. Albans. 

Poor daughter, yes, and poor mother, I thought 
of Philadelphia, her boundless ambition, her hopes, 
the manner in which her fiery nature had at last 
bent itself to the inevitable, her pawned jewels, her 
scheming on Monmouth’s behalf, her great dreams — 
and her awakening. And of Anna, his wife, who had 
dreamed — and awakened. Henrietta alone, I think, 
dreamed not at all. Always and ever she had faced 
realities, clear-eyed. Life, her life and his ; death, 
his death and hers. Love, their love, that one thing 
immortal! I bowed my head before it; yet I too 
had my own love, a poor thing, a pale flame burning 
beside theirs; but never say that a woman can only 
love men as lovers. My two Kings had been all my 
life to me. 

Again it was Ailesbury who gave me news. He 
did not call, he wrote. The days were darkening 
into late September, the foxy -brown of the beeches 
burnt along the Verulam Woods. St. Albans, like a 
continental city, showed red and brown, cream and 
grey beyond my high walls. Then Ailesbury’s letter 
came to me. 

“She is returning, I know this for truth. She has 
written to nobody, but one has sent me word. She 
will pass your gates to-morrow. Should the packet 
be delayed it will not be till dark, but it may be earlier. 
Madame, I think you will wish to know this.” Our 
faithful Ailesbury ! 

The packet may have been late, or the heavy 
rains of the past and gone summer have rendered 
the roads worse than usual, it was after dark before 
I heard the roll of wheels, the trotting of an escort, 
and a travelling coach and its accompaniment ap- 
proached my gate. I stood there wrapped in my 


From St. Stephen's to St. Albans 445 

cloak, my woman with a lantern close behind me. 
The traveller, if she cared to pause, or if she wished 
to go straight on, should at least see me waiting for 
her. And she did stop. The great coach came creak- 
ing and rolling to a standstill, the mounted servants 
pulled up, one swung himself off his horse and opened 
the door, and, as I went forward, the wavering rays 
of the light behind me fell on the fair face I had last 
seen among the tulips and spring foliage of a Dutch 
garden. 

“Ah, Madame Stuart, this is welcome indeed,” she 
said, and stretched out her hands to me. I was on 
the step of the coach, I held her hands (wondering 
as I took them if they would fade into nothingness 
at my touch, so fragile, so burning were they). I 
kissed her and looked at her in silence, wordless, for 
it was she who spoke, with calmness, almost with 
gaiety. The long Wentworth eyes seemed to fill her 
whole face, the brilliant colour showed on cheeks always 
pale for all their rouge at Whitehall, the serious mouth 
smiled. 

“So I come back !” she said ; “and so I find 
you waiting, as I might have known. Nay, my kind 
dear friend, I will not stay; I must reach Todding- 
ton to-night, and it grows late. But promise me this 
— will you hold yourself in readiness to come and see 
me — before long? I have things to do, and much 
to put in order, and there are those whom I must 
talk with, and work that I must finish; afterwards 
I shall rest. And I want you to come to my home 
before I leave it. Madame Carey — -yes, I have just 
seen her, did you not know? — she has told me of 
James’s wish. Now I tell you of mine: I want yoi^!” 
She spoke quite easily and simply, exactly (as I 
realised at the moment) as Monmouth had spoken 
to you in the Tower ; she kissed me again, she 
pressed my hands. “Go in now,” she said, as if she 


446 


My Two Kings 


were taking care of me. “You are chilled, you must 
have been waiting long; I will write.” 

She laughed softly, but she fell back with a gasp, 
and I realised that her maid had been holding her up 
all the time, and now drew her back among the cushions 
in the great coach. 

“Go within. I promise — I will send for you. I 
have something to give you. Adieu, Madame, we shall 
meet again,” and the travelling carriage and its escort 
passed on into the dusk out of the ring of light shed 
by my lantern. 

“She will be travelling most of the night,” I said 
half to myself as I went up the path, and my woman 
overheard me. 

“Yes, Madame, but I do not think milady will care. 
She does not look as if night or day differed much 
for her, does she? Death is in her face.” 

“Aye, it is,” I said. “l$ut death has been there 
long. She is happier now. When last I saw her she 
feared she would have to die and leave — His Majesty. 
Now she hath but to follow him, and she is simply 
glad.” 

“What else?” said my woman, bolting the front door 
behind us both as we stood once more in the hall. I 
looked at her, dimly surprised, but her stern, plain, 
middle-aged face was turned from me, and her shoulders 
shook in the yellow flickering light from the floor where 
the lantern had been set. 

“Oh, James!” I said to myself. “Another woman 
who loved you. When shall I ever come to the end 
of the list of women who love you?” 

I do not know; I doubt if, even in this life, I have 
come to the end of it yet ! 


Henrietta had something to give me? Yes, and 
I had something for her, but there had been delays. 


From St. Stephen's to St. Albans 


447 


Master Kneller had been kept very busy, and, as I 
read between the lines, portraits of dead attainted 
dukes painted for presumably penniless, and cer- 
tainly disgraced, ladies of the past Court, did not 
get finished before other more important commis- 
sions ! But I showed no impatience, for I knew as 
well as he that he owed his whole career as Court 
portrait-painter to Monmouth, and I was certain I 
should get my picture in time; meanwhile, I natur- 
ally saved my pence to pay for it! And three weeks 
after Henrietta had passed my gate there came a 
carrier to me, bringing a letter, announcing that the 
portrait was on its way by public coach to St. Albans, 
and would arrive at the George the following morn- 
ing. So I walked into the town to meet it, one of 
my farm hands bringing up the rear with a cart to 
carry it back. 

Up the steep slope of Eishpool Street, beyond the 
immemorial arch and the long hog’s-back of the 
Abbey nave, you go to the George Inn. It had an 
air of hoary antiquity in that life of mine, founded, 
as it was, in 1401. (The newer building on the same 
site and under the same name prospers to-day.) It 
was a house of call well known to Monmouth, my 
Lord Grey, and the rest, on their flying visits — you 
have but to read Grey’s Narrative now, to see how 
frequently they were in the town, apart from the 
visits of the former to the neighbouring parish of 
St. Stephen’s! Many a time had their light travel- 
ling coaches, so different from the old family equi- 
pages and lumbering public vehicles, stood in the 
yard surrounded by interested spectators, their steam- 
ing horses being unharnessed and led away to make 
room for fresher teams, ostlers bustling, chamber- 
maids giggling at upper windows at the fine gentle- 
men and their servants below — and as I, modestly 
on foot and in my deep mourning, turned into the 


448 


My Two Kings 


courtyard, my heart gave a leap and then stopped, 
for a moment, to see just such another carriage. 
I paused in the twilight of the archway. My host, 
who was wont to bow as near the ground as his well- 
filled waistcoat would permit to my lord or his 
Grace in the past, who had always supplied me with 
what hirelings I required for my journeys to London, 
came swiftly out of the small door under the arch 
and pushed rudely past me. I had not yet learned 
that to be the friend of his Grace my Lord General 
alive and in favour with King Charles, was not the 
same thing as to be James Scott’s discredited follower! 
— but I was learning. I drew a long breath, clenched 
my hands hard inside my cloak, and walked into the 
yard after him. 

The crowd, which had parted to let the landlord 
hurry through, admitted me in his wake. I saw him 
bowing double, as of old, to a splendidly dressed gentle- 
man standing by the coach door, who was pointing 
out something amiss with the near fore wheel, and 
giving orders as to its repair (one ran to fetch a 
wheelwright as I went in), and explaining that he 
must return that day on urgent affairs, and that his 
own house being for the time closed, he had stopped 
at the George either to have the damage righted or 
to hire a fresh conveyance back to London ; and as 
he spoke, he turned and caught sight of me. 

Across the bent back of the landlord, Lord Churchill 
and I met face to face. 

With the whirligig of events that had caught such 
obscure non-combatants as myself in the cogs of its 
machinery, John Churchill, friend of Monmouth, 
comrade-in-arms, presented by him to Charles as the 
saviour of his life after the taking of Maestricht, 
was now, by a turn of Fortune’s wheel, one of the 
victorious army who had fought against him at 
Sedgemoor, commanding, under Feversham, the cavalry 


From St. Stephen's to St. Albans 


449 


with the Duke of Grafton. Already he showed signs 
of that military genius that raised him later to a 
pinnacle of fame o’ertopped by no great English 
Captain before or since, and that inherent falseness 
that has for ever blackened the character of one of 
the handsomest and most charming men, faithful 
and adoring husbands, devoted fathers, and pleasing 
courtiers. He is for ever England’s glory and her 
shame — traitor, like Sunderland, to one, two, three 
consecutive kings, and yet undeniably and immortally 
ranked among the men who made this country what 
she is — and shall ever be. 

Our host, only too anxious to show his haste to 
carry out the great man’s orders, bowed again, and 
backed away in ridiculous repetition of his old man- 
ner to Monmouth, wheeled, and brushed hurriedly 
by me, obviously blind by intention to my presence, 
to get further help for the work on hand. A sweet, 
rather high-pitched, infinitely affected but equally 
commanding voice spoke and arrested his unmannerly 
career. 

“Look where you go, my man,” said Lord 
Churchill. “You need not knock down Madame 
Stuart to get me a new wheel !” and he came for- 
ward, his hat in one hand, holding out the other, 
back uppermost, for me to give him mine to kiss. 
He had rebuked an insult to me, he stood before me, 
charming, smiling, self-possessed as usual ; by not 
one sign did he show' surprise that my hands re- 
mained locked under the folds of my cloak, nor that, 
as I curtsied, there was no answering smile on my 
face. 

“Can I help you, Madame?” he asked. “These good 
folk forget their manners, it seems.” 

The nonplussed and stammering landlord had paused 
behind me, to blurt out excuses and ask for orders. 
I bowled, silently still, to Lord Churchill. “The public 


450 


My Two Kings 


coach has brought me somewhat,” I said coldly to the 
landlord. “My man and a cart are without; let the 
package be given him without delay.” Then I spoke 
to his lordship. 

“Sir, the matter of your wheel is urgent, I will not 
interrupt you further,” and I turned to go. 

But the gay gallant figure and the chestnut 
curls were beside me, spurs rang upon the cobbles, 
and the sweet voice said in my ear: “Mistress, I 
am proceeding on foot to my house; I have papers 
to go through, and some orders to give my people 
while this cursed wheel is mending, and I would have 
a word with you. You are walking? — allow me to 
escort you thus far,” and I went out of the inn 
courtyard with John Churchill, composed, serene, 
magnificent in the bravery of his cavalry uniform, be- 
side me. 

“Madame,” he said softly and swiftly, “you con- 
demn me for the part I have played of late.” 

“My lord,” I replied, “I said no word. The losing 
side has to take its beating — and more than its beat- 
ing — in silence. Also I thank you for your courtesy. 
A friend of the late Duke has (it would seem) become 
invisible in the eyes of the lesser folk hereabouts, but 
why should I blame them? I do not. Nor do I con- 
demn you.” 

“No, Madame,” he answered me, “I know you do 
not. Remember I am a soldier; I was under orders. 
A soldier has to obey, he is a servant of the king ” 

“Oh, aye, I know,” I said wearily, “there are no 
ties of friendship for a king’s servants. My Lord 
Ailesbury says the same. I wonder, my lord, how it 
would be had the day gone otherwise, had you and 
your king and your soldier-hood and your service been 
at our orders?” 

The slow cold anger of the Scot flamed steadily, 
resistlessly up in me. I thought of the stricken field of 


From St. Stephen's to St. Albans 451 

the King’s Sedgemoor and the bloody after-crop of 
Judge Jeffrey’s reaping, tales of which crept back to 
me day by day, and I did not try to hide my thoughts, 
for I feared no servant of James II, nor did I ever. 

“Under another king, Lord Churchill !” I said, as 
we went together down the abrupt slope of the hill 
of the Holy Well, “another king to serve, another king 
to fight for, and you would say the same?” 

Perhaps that was a truer word spoken than I knew 
at the time, perhaps the shot went deeper than I 
thought, for all the fine composure outwardly unruffled. 
Four years later, how well I remembered that talk 
of ours! We paused at the gates of his house, and 
the hill I had yet to ascend rose before me; he smiled 
again and took off the plumed hat once more and 
stood bareheaded and brilliantly good-looking in the 
October sunshine. 

“And which king, Madame, if one may ask, claims 
your allegiance now?” 

“Sir,” I said to him, “you are a man and a 
soldier and a public servant. You must always have 
a Sovereign to serve; you have taught me that a 
woman may be in happier case, she need only think of 
her country!” 

“Ah?” he questioned, with the same light un- 
ruffled smile, “doubtless that simplifies matters. 
Kings complicate a man’s life, Madame Stuart; your 
heart pulls one way, your religion another, your 
Sovereign gives you orders which point in a third 
direction, your country needs your presence (so you 
think) in a fourth. What is a man to do?” He 
laughed. 

“There is one thing he will not do if he be wise,” 
I said, “and that is — to ask a woman what course he 
should take.” 

The steel-blue waters of the little Ver, strewn 
with yellowing leaves, ran under the bridge by which 


452 


My Two Kings 


we stood. A gust shook the high trees lining my 
road uphill, and scattered a gleaming shower of gold 
upon us. 

“So a man will ask but one thing, Madame,” said 
John Churchill, “your kind hand in token of forgive- 
ness,” and his own was outstretched once more for 
me to lay mine upon it. “His late Majesty King 
Charles would have said ” 

That was the one mistake he made — the fatal error, 
for all his courtier-like readiness, patience, and adroit- 
ness. I swung round upon my keel suddenly at the 
word, and let go my icy anger. 

“His late Majesty King Charles,” I repeated slowly 
and clearly, “would have said, ‘I forgive you, for you 
do it for your bread!’ I’ll say that too, my lord. 
There’s my forgiveness — with King Charles’s!” and I 
turned and went up the hill to my home without another 
sign. 


In my parlour, a great case of rough boards had 
been carefully opened; against the couch, catching the 
last rays of the sun, leant a splendid golden frame 
enclosing the painting which I had prophesied would 
be Kneller’s masterpiece. I stood and looked down 
at the presentment of the dead face as I had looked 
at the original in the Tower under the golden light 
of the hanging lamp. 

“You have the rights of it by now, at any rate,” 
I said. “Whether it’s orders from your heart or your 
conscience or your king or your country, and whether 
you give commands or obey them. You gave me one 
last order and I have to carry that out! afterwards, 
there will be nobody left for me to obey. I may find 
life simpler than doth Lord Churchill!” 

Then, as I ceased speaking, there swept over me 
the sea of my great loneliness, the recollection of all 


From St. Stephen's to St. Albans 453 

I had had and all I had lost. And yet I was not 
thinking of myself, but of the horror of this warm 
young life cut off deliberately in cold blood, this death 
that was meant to be a public shame, man’s vengeance 
upon man, Stuart’s vengeance on Stuart! Down to 
the floor I went beside the portrait, on my knees, 
sinking ever lower, my head resting against the cornice 
of the frame, my hands (that the future Duke of 
Marlborough had been denied) covering my face — and 
then came the tears, till I was blind and giddy and 
faint. To die — how unbearably hard! To live — how 
unbearably harder! It was not till I had shed every 
tear I had left, and had risen and dried my eyes and 
dragged back by force of will some semblance of self- 
control, that the other spirit of unquenchable laughter 
rose again in my breast. 

“It would not seem,” I said to myself, “that the 
Stuarts have much to be glad of concerning life or 
death. But oh, my dear, we had some brave times, 
and we’ll have more yet. Dead — you and His Majesty, 
my two Kings? Not half so dead as I am now, or as 
I hope to be before very many years are over.” 

Meantime there was life to be faced with nobody 
in it left to obey, and I found it simpler than did Lord 
Churchill. 

Oh, without doubt I did, but I never did anything 
for my country that counts; and Marlborough, for 
all his faults, did as much as any man has ever done, 
I think. 


r 






















CHAPTER XXVII 


FROM TODDINGTON TO THE END 

Only a moment more and we shall meet. 

The white death-chamber fades to dying eyes, 

Far off, as sounds come from a distant street, 

Are whispered questions, and half-heard replies. 

And faint and far the faces that are near, 

And dulled the muffled footsteps on the floor — 

The darkness closes — Soul, have thou no fear. 

Only a moment more! 

I waited very long, it seemed to me, for Henrietta 
Wentworth’s summons to Toddington, and it did not 
come. 

The browns and blues and gold lights of October 
died out in rain and wind, and a long weary winter 
set in early. The roads were almost impassable. 
Finely as the old Romans made the Watling Street, 
that famous highway was in none too good a con- 
dition then at several points, and the ascending 
road from Dunstable to Toddington, where one quits 
the Watling Street and goes across (and up) country 
to the right for several miles, was in shocking repair. 
Toddington was accustomed to being almost cut off 
from the rest of the world during the winter months 
of the seventeenth century. I waited with what 
patience I could muster, but I longed to go and 
take with me Kneller’s picture, and there was a 
haunting fear in my heart that I might wait too 
long. Was she too ill to write? What was her 

mother’s attitude? What ? I went over a string 

of questions daily and found no reply to any of 
457 


458 


My Two Kings 


them. Reports sometimes reached me; I heard by 
letter from London of the visit of that bishop to 
Toddington whose duty it was to hand over some- 
thing Monmouth had left in his charge for Lady 
Wentworth; that he had been unwilling to go, but 
that the King had commanded it. Even then I won- 
dered if the King had insisted merely because the 
bishop was reluctant! or had he after all a feeling 
that it was her right to have anything thus left for 
her by her unfortunate lover? Again I could not 
answer. 

I heard naught of Anna Monmouth, but I wanted 
to hear naught. The latest intelligence I had re- 
ceived was of the release of her two sons from the 
Tower in November, and that the little daughter 
had died there a month after her father — so much 
and no more. The London Gazette was filled with 
“loyal addresses,” officialdom incarnate, hardly a word 
of real news. Life limped by, trailing broken wings 
in the mud. 

And then, one day there came a letter from Lady 
Wentworth. 

It was short and shakily written, but it contained 
what I wanted, an invitation to visit her. She had 
been very ill, she said, but was now better. Her 
mother, Lady Philadelphia, was wearied with nursing 
and was going up to town for a short visit and to 
see her lawyers. “We shall therefore be free,” the 
letter concluded, a brief but pregnant sentence. I had 
been wondering how I should deal with Philadelphia, 
if she formed the third person at our interview, and 
I found myself unable to get rid of her in her own 
house! I think, too, that her daughter had felt the 
same, and had waited for her absence to ask me to 
come to her. 

The roads were impossible for hired vehicles, but 
Henrietta informed me that their own great travel- 


From To dding ton to the End 459 

ling coach would fetch me on its return from taking 
her mother to London ; she also promised that it should 
bring me back. I was to have no trouble of any kind; 
she would arrange everything, and — again — we should 
be free. 

I sat with her letter on my lap and looked long 
out of the window. Had we ever been free before, 
in all our lives, she and I? A woman owns a master 
or is her own mistress. Why, perhaps, now we had 
that much freedom! I turned from the window and 
glanced up at the beautiful picture that hung oppo- 
site. I had said my good-bye to him, and now, as I 
knew perfectly well, I was going to say my good-bye 
to her. 

I had many portraits of James. I had been 
allowed by his father to have a fine copy made of 
the Cooper miniature at Windsor; I had an exquisite 
head (much resembling the “School of John Riley” 
in the National Portrait Gallery to-day) ; I owned 
two or three studies by Sir Peter — one of a laugh- 
ing mischievous boy of sixteen or seventeen; I had 
several prints, including both the Blootelings. But 
this was only mine till I could give it to her, and 
send it I would not; indeed, I found it very hard to 
face parting with it at all. But she had the right — 
why, who else? And this was utterly mine. No 
copy of a Royal collection’s work of art, no engraving 
from a picture on the Duchess of Monmouth’s walls ! 
but mine — mine, as he was Henrietta’s, who was 
giving her life for love of him. What had I given 
for him? — I, who seemed to have done nothing else 
but give. 

I wonder why we cared! — just those few of us who 
worshipped him. There were not so very many of 
us, but we all loved James with something of the 
love that his father had had for him, I think; and 
he — oh ! but he had loved us all in his way, or a 


460 


My Two Kings 


dozen different ways, yet all liis way! And Henrietta? 
There was no question about his absolute adoration 
of her. “He loved her; he had given her his best, 
and possibly it was not his fault that his best was 
not better.” 

I lifted the picture down; my maid and I packed 
it carefully for its journey. Three days later the 
Wentworth coach stopped once more at my gates to 
carry me to Toddington. 

Frost had succeeded damp and wind, a brilliant 
red sun hung like a round scarlet lamp in an opalescent 
sky. The journey, which in summer weather should 
have been accomplished in a few hours, took me 
nearly a whole day. I went alone with my picture 
— I did not even take my woman — a modest valise 
contained all my gear ; that, and the case holding 
the portrait, were my sole impedimenta, “my night- 
bag,” as I thought, and smiled over Charles’s retort 
to Clarendon that he counted fifty horse as part of 
it. Mine was more restricted, at any rate, but the 
Wentworth servants took great care of me. There 
were warm cloths in the coach, and one of the escort 
(for a man rode on either side and another behind) 
produced a spare cloak, a big warm thing of lambs’ 
fleeces in case I were chilled. 

So we rolled along the straight Roman street, so 
we climbed the upland country, so we turned down- 
ward into the little deep-set valley where Toddington 
Place stood crumbling to decay among its fishponds 
and woods, and so I saw Henrietta once more, know- 
ing I should see her no more at all. 

I admit I was afraid of that meeting. 

The strain of the past year had shaken me badly, 
I knew I should find a dying woman, and the whole 
visit might spell unrelieved tragedy. Never was I 
more surprised — I, who thought myself past all sur- 
prising. It was already dark, but when I had been 


From Toddington to the End 461 

dispossessed of my wraps and conducted across the 
great hall and to that wing that she and Monmouth 
had occupied for those happy five months in 1683, 
I found a warm, brightly lit parlour; and Henrietta, 
if she could not rise, yet held out both arms to me 
from where she lay propped up with cushions on the 
day-bed by the fire, her face thin to emaciation, and 
absolutely “all eyes,” brilliantly flushed, and with a 
lovely smile of greeting. She never said a word; she 
just held out her arms like a child. I knelt beside 
her, and — I confess it — it was I who wept on her 
shoulder and she who comforted me. 

“Oh, you poor thing,” she said to me very softly, 
“who have to go on living!” and then she laughed and 
stroked my hair — so unlike her old self: she was never 
given to caresses or many smiles, or kisses, or that 
cheap commerce between women friends. But on the 
edge of death barriers break down, I think. My fair, 
tall gracious Henrietta Wentworth, indeed, indeed you 
were very nearly free! 


I was taken away by her women to rest, to change 
my dress, but I came down again and had my supper 
in her room and we talked for a while. “To-morrow 
morning we will go out,” she said. “Oh yes, I go 
out! I have a sort of litter and two of my men 
carry me, and I travel my gardens and my woods, 
and I look at the water and the grass, and watch, 
every day, the sap rising and the buds growing 
greener. You shall walk beside me if it will not 
weary you, and see once more my old home. Madame, 
when one dies it is hard to leave one’s home behind. 
But that is my punishment. I have failed Todding- 
ton. I was a queen who gave up her throne. I 
leave no heir; here we end, we Wentworths! My 
little son is safe in Paris, safe and well. No, my 


462 


My Two Kings 


dear, I shall never see him again. I have said my 
farewell to him and put it behind me. That is over; 
he is in good hands; he will bear another name , 1 his 
future is provided for. I have nothing more to 
suffer except a few more weeks of life. And if I have 
borne — what I have borne, those will be bearable!” 
She laughed again. “Don’t pity me, don’t be sorry, 
don’t be sad. All is for the best, my friend, all! I 
would have nothing changed, for it might change one 
thing .” 

She looked into the glowing coals. “Meanwhile, as 
it is — it is as it was. I speak in parables; forgive 
me. You see, I love him. I loved him from the very 
beginning; no, not when I went to Court, I saw him 
first at his governor’s, my kinsman, Lord Crofts, when 
I was a girl of fifteen. I loved him from the very 
first moment I ever saw him. Not (you understand 
me?) for his character, his gifts, his capabilities — 
oh, there was so much latent! — nor for his beauty. 
He was the most beautiful person I have ever 
seen.” 

(I put both my hands silently over my eyes for a 
moment — my heart knows he was.) 

“Nor for his love for me. I did not love him for 
what he could do or be; I loved him — just that. 
These things are so. They come upon us, they fall 
almost like a stroke. When my love came to me I 
felt as if a great hand were suddenly laid on me, 
hard, never to be lifted again. It was not a burden, 
it was my whole life, and the meaning of everything. 
For years and years he never cared. He had his 
wife the Duchess, he loved Eleanor Needham, Lady 
Betty Felton, Mrs. Kirke, Mrs. Waller, a dozen 
more. Loved them? of course he did. I am the 

i Smyth-Stuart. His descendants are believed to live in America 
to this day, but all efforts to trace them have failed. 


463 


From Toddington to the End 

last person to deny it ! People think that we women 
who only love one in all our lives cannot understand 
those who love many — I do. He was very fond of 
the Duchess till she spoilt it. She was cleverer than 
any of us, Madame, but she was a fool in dealing 
with her husband. She had his love once and she 
threw it away. The others? — they had it and then 
. . . they had it not. And they were all more love- 
able than she, and I think they all loved him better, 
except Mrs. Kirke, and she was base — vile to the 
very marrow of her bones. But she was intensely at- 
tractive — ah! we both knew her, did not we? and 
we both understand. The rest, they did their best, 
I think. I stood aside. At first I hated you because 
I feared you. You knew it; I saw that! You were 
only about five years older then than I am now. You 
were still so girlish in your ways, still pretty, and he 
always trusted you (he trusted so few people all his 
life). I was afraid. Then, later, I could not under- 
stand when you seemed willing to help him in his 
pursuit of me. You had, if anything, held him back 
from the other ” 

“Yes,” I said below my breath, “but you were 
you, and they were the others, and I knew it at 
once.” 

She smiled. “Perhaps. But I was bewildered. 
His Majesty . . . and Monmouth was pressing me all 
the time, though so carefully that only you and the 
King saw, not even poor Bruce, my kind friend 
always. Kind still, Madame ; I have one or two 
friends left, perfect friends. What can any one want 
more?” 

She paused. “There is nothing I want now save 
God’s forgiveness, and I believe, with King Charles 
and James, that I shall receive it. Ah, we were 
most wicked, Madame, all of us! But you have seen 
the old priest Hudleston, I know, and he has told 


464 


My Two Kings 


you of the King’s death — his terrible sufferings of 
mind and body — and his perfect repentance. On the 
scaffold,” the steady voice went on, “my James com- 
mitted himself to the mercy of God in sure and certain 
hope. And in that hope I die! They two believed 
that they would win Heaven, Madame Stuart, and with 
them I dare to believe. The world will judge us — 
and rightly — by our sinful lives, but after our deaths, 
God Whom we have wronged beyond human pardon, 
will give us His Divine.” 

I knelt by her side and hid my face, my lips against 
her hair. 

“To me, too,” I whispered, “to me, too ... !” 

So I have hoped, so I have trusted, all through the 
interminable years of the grey later life which is my 
expiation. 


A little while after her woman came in and said the 
portrait was unpacked, would milady see it? I was 
nervous, I feared, knowing how marvellously it was 
painted, that it might break down what I still thought 
her miraculous self-control. She saw the dread in 
my face. 

“Oh no !” she cried, as if in answer to my 
thoughts. “Bring it in — stay, set it in my chamber, 
and then bid them carry me up to bed. Will you 
come with me?” as I made to bid her good-night, 
and draw back. “I want you to come. You don’t 
understand yet !” The smile lit up the shining 
eyes. 

“I begin to,” I replied, and followed her men- 
servants as they carried her to her room. 

The portrait was set where it could be seen from 
her bed, glowing under the light of a great oil-lamp, 
exactly as I had seen him lying last, but it was I 
who caught my breath, and my eyes that filled with 


From Toddington to the End 


465 


tears. She looked at it long and steadily, then she 
held out one hand to me. “Oh, how far, how very 
far away he had gone,” she said, putting into words 
exactly what I have always felt when I look at the 
picture. I could not speak. I gazed at her in silence 
and felt as if my heart were slowly breaking in two. 
I had lost Charles, I had lost Monmouth, and she was 
going to them and I had to stay behind. What a 
working-day world this is, but what a great deal of 
waiting one has to do in it! 


The next morning dawned diamond-clear and 
serene, one of our most beautiful English days of the 
early year, when the blood should dance and sparkle 
and one’s feet hardly touch the ground, when spring 
says, “Behold I make all things new.” That is the 
only way I can bear spring now — the thought of 
things made new, not of old things that can never 
be re-made. If we could have again in this life all 
we once found the best in it, so much would have 
to be altered, to be changed, to be obliterated, for- 
given, forgotten, before we could get back to the 
moment when our happiness reached its zenith. 
Now, in Heaven, as I hope, there will be none of 
that ! We shall just begin again where we left off 
at our happiest and best, and go on and on, higher 
and higher, to life and lives more great, more beau- 
tiful, more fine, always with Love perfect and un- 
dying. 

Why, the Heaven I sometimes dream of is too good 
to be true! 

So if, when I get there, if ever I get there, and it 
falls below my dreams, I shall be utterly happy, 
knowing that what I picture to myself is beyond all 
I can possibly desire or deserve. Yet God has told 
us that Paradise (like His Peace) will pass all under- 


466 


My Two Kings 


standing. What a wonderful thing to be able to do ! 
— to have a Heaven to give to poor human beings who 
have just had a chance to guess at what beauty and 
laughter and loyalty and love may mean, who have 
had their Pisgah-sight, their dream of Paradise, and, 
because of that, can go cheerfully to death as went 
these brave if sorry sinners of whom I write, who paid 
and paid and paid a terrible price, and, I hope, now 
owe God nothing further. 

I was bidden to Lady Wentworth’s room early. 
She lay in the great green velvet bed with its tower- 
ing ostrich plumes, her fair hair — that hair ‘like the 
wheat’ — spread over the pillows, smiling the same 
confident smile, as I came in. I kissed her and I 
moved to the picture, upon which fell the brilliant 
radiance of the morning. Looking for one moment, 
I turned quickly to her. “Henrietta,” I said (I 
do not remember ever having called her by her 
name before), “he sent me something by Madame 
Carey, a curl of his hair and one of the King his 
father’s — that was his last thought for me.” I put 
my hand to my neck, where the packet rested securely 
under my gown. 

“How good of him!” she said; “but not too good 
for you. And you come bringing me this? Ah, it 
is not for long; a little while, and this picture shall 
be yours again. I have had it labelled already that 
it is to be returned to you. And now I have some- 
thing; Madame Stuart, will you give me that little 
box?” 

She tried to raise herself on an elbow and fell back, 
but a tiny gold casket I remembered well was on her 
table, and I put it into her hands in a moment. 

“Open it,” she gasped. I did so, and out fell upon 
the velvet quilt a round glistening grey bead. I took 
it up and looked at it, and then I saw. 

It was one of my black pearls. 


From Toddington to the End 467 

“The last,” she whispered, “the very last ! I 
sold the necklace — you bade me — but before I came 
back to England I sent for the jeweller and I bought 
back this, all he had left. But — so that you may 
see I remembered — there is just one of your beauti- 
ful pearls, and I want you to keep it in memory of the 
others.” 

Not of herself, nor of Monmouth, just in memory 
of the rest. I went to the window and looked out 
across the fair park, so gay, so green, so unheeding 
in the dawning spring. “Oh, don’t!” said my heart, 
but my lips were silent. I had been empowered 
to bear bravely the deaths of Charles and James, 
but this death was breaking down the last reserves 
of my self-control, this happy death ! Henrietta Went- 
worth lay back on her pillows and smiled tenderly 
at me. 

So that is how my one pearl came back, and that 
is how the portrait of the Duke of Monmouth lying 
dead was returned to me at the end of the following 
April. 

I have no chick nor child to leave it to; I did 
dare to ask her if her son should not have it, but she 
quickly shook her head. The other men and women 
who loved Monmouth have their portraits of him. I 
would a Stuart sat upon the throne that I might return 
it to a Stuart’s keeping. But Nature has decreed 
an end of us ; we are to rule no more in England. Yet 
some day, I know, I know, the Hanoverian dross will 
burn out, there will be kings of England who will 
value their Stuart blood, and who will be loved and 
served by their people as Stuarts should be. Per- 
haps, too, they will find my picture and place it in 
a national collection, and the world will see as I saw, 
and begin to understand, the portrait of my poor 
Stuart who was never a Stuart, my King who was 
never a King! 


468 


My Two Kings 


So, now that I can write in this life, I will add 
one word — this is what has happened. They found 
my picture and they hung it in the National Portrait 
Gallery 1 only a few years back, and I, all unknow- 
ing, went there not long after. And across the 
room, warm in the mellow afternoon light, I caught 
sight of the portrait. I pulled up in my saunterings, 
I went up to it, and looked, and at that moment, 
for the first time, my eyes were opened, and some- 
thing began to come back to me. On that afternoon 
there dawned the first glimmerings of returning 
memory, as consciousness comes slowly back to the 
sleeper. It has taken a long time; maybe I am not 
awake, but only dreaming after all. Then I trust I 
may not wake — it is a good dream! God knows I 
loved these people. 


When she sped me on my way home that afternoon, 
Henrietta Wentworth did break down a little. 

“Oh, these are not tears for myself,” she said. “They 
are for you, my best friend. I know what waiting 
means. Always remember that when you think of me. 
And think of me sometimes — sometimes, Madame. I 
loved you too!” 

So I have obeyed her, and I think of her death not 
as the end, but the beginning of the “making new” 
of her all-absorbing, all-sacrificing love for Mon- 
mouth, with, one may trust, the evil burnt out of it 
and but the good remaining. There are those who 
can realise nothing but the sin of all this story; all 
the qualities I have tried to tell of go for nothing — 
the unswerving loyalty, the unfaltering devotion, the 
cheerfulness in the face of disaster, the bravery in 

1 At the moment of writing, alas ! not accessible to the public, 
but “placed in safety for fear of enemy aircraft.” 


From Toddington to the End 469 

the face of death — yes, and of life — the service, the 
giving, the pain endured, the loss endured, the death- 
in-life loneliness — why, if they go for nothing, then 
(I say it deliberately) the sin may go for nothing too, 
now that at last you are free, Henrietta, my dear, 
my dear. 

She never changed, nor did he. 

He wrecked his reputation for ever in the eyes of 
History by that terrible breakdown of self-control after 
he was taken prisoner — for her sake, and in vain. 
But he died with absolute calm and cheerfulness, think- 
ing only of her, and thus, nine months later, she died 
thinking only of him. 

Everything else had gone. 

The furnace of agony had burnt away all other 
emotions, affections, and beliefs, but their trust in 
each other and in the God to Whom they had always 
prayed, and from Whom they believed they had had 
no sign of disapproval. The danger in their example 
would be great were such love as theirs common. 
It is not; once or twice only in a lifetime one meets 
with such love. I never deny their sin; I always knew 
they were wicked, even if they did not! But when 
the riddle of our lives is made plain to us in another 
world, then, and not till then, we shall understand 
why that love came to Henrietta Wentworth and 
never went away again, why, when once Monmouth 
loved her, he clave to her only, gave up his old care- 
less loose life, found his religion a real thing, and 
died sure of God’s mercy. In this world some of us 
are apparently set a task which appears to entail 
a breaking of our laws. It is not for me to attempt 
to say whether we should accept such a task or 
refuse it. We are lucky when we have only a small 
part to play that can be played circumspectly. But 
oh, how small, how very small, may be the task 
that is ours ! — that was mine. Yet I envy Hen- 


470 My Two Kings 

rietta nothing, and neither will I cast a stone at 
her. 

Before such love I am silent in unspeakable ad- 
miration, for I could never have loved a man like that 
— I was not great enough. 

I think of the last time I saw Toddington Place, 1 
my walk beside her litter that glorious morning. 
We went along the great woods and by the steel-blue 
water ; we passed through the beautiful neglected 
old gardens and paused for a while under the oak 
where Monmouth had carved her initials. And by 
our side all the way went the ghost of a gallant 
figure — tall, gay, light of foot, with dear brown eyes 
that shone, and a voice that would wile a bird from 
a tree — and she and I were both conscious of his 
company and each knew that the other knew. The 
sunlight trembled through the bare boughs, the 
splendid half-ruinous old house stood up bravely 
beyond its overgrown pleasure-grounds, the keen, clear 
English air blew in our faces over the short-bitten 
winter grass. A fragile hand, translucent as fine 
alabaster, was stretched forth and slipped into mine, 
the brave tawny eyes looked to me, happily, and all 
round, coming back in the end to turn to that figure 
that still stood beside us, smiling at her — always, 
always at her. 

Thus, when I left her, I did not leave her alone. 


So at the end of April was severed my last link 
with my James, and Bruce and I, neither of us 
bidden to the funeral, stood side by side in the windy 
churchyard on Toddington Hill while the villagers 
carried Henrietta Wentworth’s body on its last 
journey, and her fearless soul went "forth from the 


1 It was called “Place” in the seventeenth century. 


From Toddington to the End 471 

dark prison of this world into the open light beyond. 
This I know, when I feel most sure; this I hope, when 
I come nearest to doubt; thus, in my blackest hour, 
I face and fight despair. For my life is a long one, 
and there is too much time in it. 

No bells tolled. Sir William Smith, Philadelphia’s 
old lover, had cut the ropes in a fit of virtuous in- 
dignation. Well, no bells tolled for Monmouth 
when they buried him ! Otherwise there was much 
ceremony. Philadelphia had called together many 
of her friends ; later she left a will and instructions 
for a magnificent memorial, to be erected above the 
vault where her daughter lies between Philadelphia’s 
own coffin and that of her long-dead father; before 
which, in this life, I have knelt and prayed, not for 
the sleep of Henrietta’s soul, but for its glad awak- 
ing. When the ceremony was over, Bruce and I, who 
had kept apart and spoken to no one, met again at 
the gate of the church; he put me into my hired coach 
previous to his own return to his home in the other 
direction, and for one moment, at the door, he took 
my hands. 

Bruce was happily married, his long-life was filled 
with interest and much to do, his descendant by his 
second marriage was that ill-fated Louise of Stolberg, 
tragic little wife of tragedy incarnate, Prince Charles 
Edward in his old age ; the posterity of this kind friend 
of mine were numerous and of importance among the 
great families, and there is much to be read in the 
old man’s Memoirs written half a century later. But, 
for that day, he was just Monmouth’s unchanged and 
unchanging friend, Henrietta Wentworth’s first suitor 
and adoring lover; and though I smiled, for I was 
thinking of them both, and I was glad, I have not seen 
a sadder look on any man’s face. He did not speak, 
he took both my hands and held them; then he kissed 
them, hard — oh, the wrench of the heart it gave me 


472 


My Two Kings 


for a second, for it reminded me so of Monmouth! — • 
then suddenly he clasped them together and laid them 
on my lap. “Pray for them, Madame,” he said, and 
stepped back. 

My coach moved forward, rolled heavily down the 
long hill and out, through Dunstable, into the straight 
road that ran like an arrow to my home. That road 
runs beyond St. Stephen’s, up to London, through 
London, and down, down to the south and the sea. 
I thought of the canal in Holland which had carried 
me straight, straight, on my way to see Monmouth 
alive for the last time, and of my life, that ran through 
all these other lives and deaths, right on, unturning. 
I thought of Frances Richmond and her warning: 
“The Stuarts go on”; and my answer: “I know; I 
go on myself!” It is quite true; I go on still. So 
I drove back along the Watling Street, with my hands 
clasped in my lap and a smile on my lips, alone. 


THE END 


TO THE STUARTS 


You gave me of your blood. Not once it called me. 
But ever, night and day. 

It was no passing sentiment enthralled me, 

And bade me come away. 

You called, I heard. Two hundred years and over 
Opened to let me through, — 

“We are your people, why are you a rover.” 

And so I came to you. 

My people — mine. I know your shame and sinning, 

I know your joy and pain. 

The blackest ending to the white beginning, 

Ris’n stars — that set again. 

I know your broken faith (and what comes after,) 
The love you deem your due! 

I know your tears, and oh, I know your laughter, 
Since I am one of you. 

I build no temple, raise no fane immortal, 

I worship at no shrine, 

I hold the key to ope a secret portal, 

Between your days and mine, 

A little door! — to other eyes ’tis hidden, 

And I alone slip through 
Into the past from whence I came, unchidden, 

Back to the life with you! 


Look, I am yours. And ours the past of glory, 

That lives from age to age, 

Writ ever in the Book of Scotland’s Story, 

Our deathless heritage. 

I build no temple, raise no fane immortal, 

I worship at no shrine, 

But bring my whole heart through the little portal 
To you, my people — mine! 

Maud Nepean. 


1911 . 


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